ADDRESSES 

OF 
MELANCTHON  WOOLSEY  STRYKER 


Hamilton 
Lincoln  & 
other  addresses 


BY 

MELANCTHON  WOOLSEY  STRYKER 

'President  of  Hamilton  College 


Tfltica,  m.  I?. 

TOltlllam  U.  Smitb  &  Company 
1806 


Copyright,  1896,  by 
M.  Woolsey  Stryker. 

All  rights  reserved. 


S63 


, 

HAirJ 


PUBLISHER'S  NOTE 

THIS  volume  gathers  the  chief  Orations  and  Addresses,  to 
gether  with  three  Baccalaureate  Sermons,  given  by  President 
Stryker  during  three  and  a  half  years,  beginning  with  1893. 
A  few  of  them  are  reprinted  from  public  reports,  and  are  given 
with  the  bracketed  comments  of  their  auditors,  in  the  belief 
that  this  reflects  in  a  not  unacceptable  way  the  color  of  their 
several  occasions. 


292835 


CONTENTS 

FAOB 

I.    ALEXANDER    HAMILTON:    An  address  before   the   Hamilton 

Club  of  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  January  ii,  1895       9 

II.    ABRAHAM  LINCOLN:  An  address  before  the  Union  League  Club 

of  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  February  12,  1895 25 

III.  OUR  PURITAN  FORBEARS:  An  address  before  the  New  Eng 

land  Society  of  New  York  City,  December  22,  1893    ....    36 

IV.  THE  DUTY  OF   ENTHUSIASM:  An  address  at  the  Woodstock, 

Conn.,  celebration,  July  4,  1894 48 

V.  THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  INDEPENDENT  COLLEGE:  A  paper  read 
at  the  Convention  of  Colleges  and  Schools,  at  the  Johns 
Hopkins  University,  at  Baltimore,  Md.,  December  I,  1894  .  5Q 

VI.    EMMA  WILLARD:   An    address    at    the   presentation   of  the 

RUSSELL  SAGE  Hall,  at  Troy,  N.  Y.,  May  16,  1895      ....    67 

VII.    IDEALS:  An  address  before  the  graduates  of  the  BARTHOLO 
MEW  School,  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  May  30,  1895 74 

VIII.    THE    STEWARDSHIP    OF    KNOWLEDGE:    An    address    at  the 

opening  of  the  Brooklyn  Institute,  September  30,  1895    ...    92 

IX.    ETHICS  IN  POLITICS:  A  speech  at  the   I2yth  Banquet  of  the 

Chamber  of  Commerce,  New  York  City,  November  19,  1895  •  102 

X.  SEEING  THE  UNSEEN:  The  baccalaureate  sermon  to  the  gradu 
ating  class  of  '93,  at  Hamilton  College,  Sunday,  June  18, 1893  •  ^2 

XI.    THE  INDISSOLUBLE  LIFE:  The  baccalaureate  sermon  to  the 

class  of  '94,  Hamilton  College,  June  24,  1894 126 


8  CONTENTS 

XII.    RADICAL  AND  CONSERVATIVE:  The  baccalaureate  sermon  to 

the  class  of  95,  Hamilton  College,  June  23,  1895 138 

XIII.  CREEDS:   The  annual  sermon  before   the  Alumni   of  Auburn 

Theological  Seminary,  May  9,  1895 152 

XIV.  PARTISANSHIP  AND  PATRIOTISM:  A  speech  at  the  'Hardware 

Dinner,'  New  York  City,  February  20,  1896 168 

XV.    THE  DISTINCTIVE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE:  Remarks  be 
fore  the  University  Club  of  Buffalo,  N.  Y.,  March  3,  1896    .    .180 


aieyanber  ftmmflton 

AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE 
THE  HAMILTON  CLUB  OF  BROOKLYN 
JANUARY  n,  1895 


Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Hamilton  Club — Let  me  be 
gin  with  grateful  acknowledgment,  both  of  the  honor  which 
you  have  conferred  in  asking  me  to  speak  to  you  on  this  anni 
versary  and  of  your  hearty  and  encouraging  greeting.  Let  me 
also  moderate  all  expectation  by  telling  you  that  I  am  not  the 
adept  this  occasion  merits,  but  the  merest  novice  at  this  festal 
art  and  withal  let  me  confide,  (tho  my  present  presumption 
seems  to  contradict  me),  a  modest  one.  Modest  one  must  be 
facing  such  a  theme  and  company — a  company  to  which  the 
details  and  suggestions  of  the  theme  are  so  familiar  and  which 
contains  so  many  speakers  of  renowned  power.  You  have 
heard  of  the  good  woman  who  prayed  that  her  minister  might 
be  "anointed  with  the  ile  of  Patmos  ! "  [Laughter.]  For 
many  reasons  too  humorous  to  mention,  I  must  bespeak,  and, 
too,  in  your  own  behalf,  your  present  entreaties  forme.  I  am, 
alas,  like  the  man  who  said  he  could  "  risk  anything  except 
temptation,"  and  I  freely  confess  that  my  good  resolutions  to 
talk  less  and  think  more,  to  have  more  bung  and  less  spigot, 
were  quite  vanquished  by  the  tempting  opportunity  to  stand  here 
as  the  representative,  however  poorly,  of  an  interest  which 
holds  in  reverence  that  name  which  is  its  title,  as  it  is  also  the 
title  of  this  group.  In  a  recent  most  courteous  note  relating 
to  this  evening,  your  president  graciously  assured  me  that  you 
"  recognize  very  distinctively  the  patronymic  relationship  of 
the  club  and  the  college."  It  is  indeed  a  broad  common  ground 


iIpS*":'*.^         :   ;\     ALEXANDER    HAMILTON 

and  well  may  we  each  attempt  untiringly  to  maintain  the  spirit 
of  Alexander  Hamilon  and  to  recognize  our  debt  to  his  super 
lative  services.  But  this  duty  is  not  elective  and  singular,  it 
goes  with  our  birthright  as  loyal  Americans.  If  to  that  duty 
we  are,  e  nomine,  peculiarly  and  publicly  pledged,  it  is  also  one 
shared  joyfully  by  all  citizens  of  this  land  who  are  intelligent 
in  its  constitutional  history.  [Applause.]  For  his  great  name 
is  not  one  merely  to  grace  a  holiday,  but  it  is  woven  into  the 
very  texture  of  our  chief  events.  All  that  is  subsequent  to  him 
is  like  a  palimpsest  above  his  original  script.  His  initials  are 
the  watermark  under  every  page.  If  any  meager  recitation 
of  mine  shall  be  effective  to  stimulate  your  mental  energy  — 
if  I  can  but  start  your  thinking  by  a  kind  of  flying  switch  —  I 
shall  be  satisfied;  for  a  train  of  treasure  is  far  more  than  the 
wheezy  engine  that  moves  it.  Should  I  seem  parsimonious  of 
ideas,  remember  that  I  have  now  given  you  the  oars  and  that 
I  only  agree  to  do  the  steering  while  you  row. 

It  was  ninety  years  ago  that  the  heavy-booming  guns  at  the 
Battery  were  answered  by  the  French  and  English  warships 
then  in  the  harbor  yonder,  and  that  to  their  miserere  —  the 
three  nations  to  which  he  was  related  joining  in  that  last  salute 
—  the  heart  of  the  people  of  his  fond  adoption  quivered  in  re 
sponsive  pain.  So,  in  Trinity  Churchyard,  close  by  the  middle 
of  its  south  wall,  where  today  a  quaint  and  time-worn  con 
struction  of  stone  with  its  obscuring  inscription  but  poorly 
marks  his  sepulture,  they  laid  all  of  him  that  could  die,  to 

"  Let  the  sound  of  those  he  wrought  for, 
And  the  feet  of  those  he  fought  for, 
Echo  round  his  bones  forever  more." 

There  was  no  Tennyson  to  celebrate  in  majestic  ode  "an 
empire's  lamentations,"  and  sooth  it  was  but  a  little  empire 
then  and  this  great  city  but  a  trivial  village:  but  time  and  "  the 
strength  of  a  diffusive  thought  "  have  wrought  the  poem,  and 
his  mausoleum  is  a  mighty  dome  upheld  by  well-nigh  fifty 
pillars.  That  little  provincial  New  York  is  now,  as  a  centre  of 


HIS   PRECOCITY  » 

metropolitan  population,  the  second  on  Earth.    He  sleeps  well, 

"  While  the  stars  burn,  the  moons  increase, 
And  the  great  ages  onward  roll." 

To  him  and  to  ourselves  and  to  those  who  shall   follow  we 
owe  it  more  strenuously  to  consider  our  immortal  debt  to  one 
who  so  heroically  endured  "  as  seeing  the  invisible."     The  out 
line  that  dates  furnish,  however  familiar  to  you,  it  will  be  well 
rapidly  to  trace.     Hamilton  was  born  on  this  day,  1757,  in  the 
small  island  of  Nevis,  his  father  and  his  name  utterly  Scotch 
and  his  mother  of  Huguenot  lineage.     So  in  his  veins  blended 
the  stuff  of  the  race  of  Knox  and  of  the  race  of  Coligny   and 
Beza.     At  12  a  counting-house  of  Santa  Cruz  had  in  him  a 
clerk  of  exceptional  facility  and  of  premature  commercial  tact. 
Already  he  was  of  manly  force  and  trustiness.     At    15   here  — 
not  long  to  be  a  stranger  —  and  busy  with  books  at  Elizabeth, 
N.  J.     At   16  an  eager  student  advancing  rapidly  in   King's 
College,  whose  title  by  his  good  help  was  soon  and   thereafter 
to  be  Columbia.    What  a  star  is  that  which  stands  by  his  name 
upon  the  roll  of  that  venerable  school  to  which  your  own  club 
has    given    its    present   great    president!      At    17    he   began 
and   with    no    'prentice   hand   threw   himself   upon  the  issue 
as  a  speaker  and  a  pamphleteer.      At    19   captain   of  artillery, 
maneuvering  his  stubborn  guns  with  skill  at  Harlem  and  White- 
Plains.     At  20  upon  the  staff  of  the  commander-in-chief  with 
rank  of  lieutenant-colonel.    At  23  he  weds   Eliza,   daughter  of 
General  Schuyler.      As  lieutenant-colonel  of  infantry  he  led 
one  of  the  last  charges  upon  Cornwallis'  works  at  Yorktown. 
He  sits  in  Congress  1782-83  and  again  1787-88,   in  which   last 
period  he  becomes  the  controlling  spirit  of  the  Constitutional 
Convention.     Two-thirds  of  the   substance   of   that   sagacious 
exposition  which  we  call   "The   Federalist"  was    Hamilton's 
critical  contribution  toward  the  ratification  of  the  Convention's 
work.     Well  has  it  been  called  the  "  Bible  of  Republicanism." 
In  1780,  at  the  age  of  32,  as  Washington's  "  principal  and  most 
trusted  friend,"  he  became  the  first  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 


12  ALEXANDER   HAMILTON 

In  1708  he  was  made  Inspector-General  of  the  army,  and  in 
1799  Commander-in-Chief.  In  1800  he  was  president-general 
of  the  Society  of  the  Cincinnati.  In  1804,  Burr,  largely  thro 
the  influence  of  Hamilton  (who  read  him  well  and  distrusted 
his  sinister  ambition),  being  defeated  in  his  effort  to  become 
Governor  of  New  York,  sought  a  quarrel  with  him.  Hamilton  ac 
cepted  the  cartel  and  fell — murdered.  It  was  July  II,  and  on 
the  next  day  at  the  age  of  47  he  died.  So  ended  his  crowded 
career  of  nearly  thirty  years  of  public  service.  "That  is  not  a 
common  chance  that  takes  away  a  noble  mind,"  and  the  per 
sonal  traits  of  such  a  phenomenal  man  claim  the  most  care 
ful  pondering. 

Those  traits  were  rare,  one  by  one,  and  in  their  combination 
they  were  marvelous.  Much,  of  course,  he  owed  to  natal  gifts, 
much  to  the  variety  of  his  early  training,  much  to  the  emer 
gencies  that  influenced  his  most  flexible  years,  much  to  his 
prompt  consorting  with  the  ablest  men  :  but  heredity,  impulse, 
circumstance,  occasion  and  environment  illustrate  —  they  do 
not  explain.  He  was  what  he  was.  All  else  defines,  this 
isolates.  From  the  first  Hamilton  was  avid  of  large  things, 
and,  hating  abstractions,  he  sought  broad  ideas  in  order  to 
their  concrete  and  constructive  uses.  His  faith  in  primary 
principles  was  tirelessly  industrious  to  search  out  and  establish 
these :  but  his  prescience  was  never  ministrant  to  that  vanity 
which  often  pretends  to  evince  originality  as  if  independent  of 
dire  mental  toil.  He  forewent  no  labor  of  self-equipment,  but, 
mixing  all  he  did  with  brains,  and  with  no  occult  reserve  of 
method,  he  steered  for  conviction  and  hesitated  neither  for 
odium  nor  for  applause.  It  was  this  rectilinear  purpose,  this 
undeviating  candor,  that  both  made  him  to  be  immensely  loved, 
and,  by  indirect,  subtle  and  plausible  minds,  as  intensely  hated. 
In  either  sense  his  way  was  straightway.  If  he  lacked,  it  was 
in  conciliation  and  patience.  Precocity  is  not  of  itself  a  virtue  ; 
it  may  even  be  a  defect ;  it  is  always  a  peril.  It  was  in  spite 
of  his  youth,  and  not  because  of  it,  that  he  was  so  early  heeded 
and  followed,  for  with  all  his  energy  of  enthusiasm  he  seemed 


THE   MAKING   OF  THE   MAN  13 

endowed  at  the  beginning  with  the  fertile  resource  and  bal 
anced  judgment  of  middle  life.  That  gallant,  expressive  face 
not  only  glowed  with  heat,  but  also  beamed  with  light.  That 
lithe,  supple  and  animated  form  spoke  of  command  as  well  as 
of  impulse.  Well  for  us  that  in  him  the  range  of  hope  had 
not  time  to  be  cramped  by  that  incertitude  which  so  often 
poses  as  discretion.  [Applause.]  Well  for  us  that  he  so 
trusted  himself  to  truth,  and  that  his  early  disciplines  had  made 
him  both  so  rapid  and  so  exact.  It  was  thus  he  seized  hours 
at  which  looser-girded  wills  faltered  or  shrank.  His  prompt 
ness  rivalled  occasion,  and  serried  obstinacy  yielded  to  his 
intrepid  assaults.  [Applause.]  It  was  not  his  own  success 
he  sought,  but  the  triumph  of  a  mighty  cause.  Had  he  pre 
ferred  power,  which  is  transient,  to  influence,  which  endures ; 
had  he  been  a  partisan  rather  than  a  patriot,  a  self-seeker 
rather  than  the  trustee  of  a  future  beyond  even  his  hope  or 
ken  ;  had  he  been  duplex,  where  he  was  open,  lucid  and  sin 
cere;  then  he  had  not  impressed  his  individuality  upon  a 
whole  America  as  the  truest  translator  of  her  predestinate 
nationality.  When  the  surrender  was  making  at  Yorktown  it 
is  said  that  some  of  the  American  troops  began  to  cheer. 
41  Silence,"  ordered  Washington,  "let  posterity  cheer  for  us." 
They  are  not  always  happiest,  but  they  are  always  blessedest 
who  prefer  faith  to  popularity,  and  who  appeal  from  the  plau 
dits  of  an  hour  to  the  solemn  vindications  of  history.  There 
this  great  jurist  rested  his  great  case.  He  was  neither  sophist 
nor  paralogist.  He  dwelt  above  manipulation,  and  compro 
mise,  and  expedient,  and  formula,  and  all  mere  passport.  He 
sought  the  underlying  principles  and  the  ultimate  reality. 
His  soul  went  into  his  plea.  With  warmth  and  grace,  but 
with  a  peculiar  logical  simplicity — a  clearness  that  became 
clarity  —  and  with  the  unshaken  courage  of  one  compelled  by 
conviction,  he  summoned  his  facts  and  marshalled  his  reasons. 
His  was  the  strategy  of  unambushed  truth  and  the  elastic 
energy  of  a  direct  will.  [Cheers.]  The  power  of  the  will  in 
oratory  is  elemental.  An  orator  is  a  leader  —  a  captain  and 


M  ALEXANDER   HAMILTON 

captor  of  men  —  his  captaincy  is  captivation;  for  hearts  are 
made  that  way.  But  the  genius  for  this  control  is  none  other 
than  undisguised  and  uncalculating  devotion  to  a  cause.  The 
words  of  such  an  one  are  spermatic.  To  him  the  souls  of  men 
respond  as  tinder  kisses  flame.  It  was  said  that  in  the  conven 
tion  of '88  Hamilton  "converted  his  opponents  on  his  feet," 
and  later  still  his  irnpressiveness  had  no  dubious  tribute  when 
Congress  refused  to  hear  him  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
lest  it  should  be  too  much  convinced.  But  he  was  no  theatri 
cal  rhapsodist.  His  rhetoric  served,  not  mastered,  his  syllo 
gism.  With  pen,  as  with  voice,  he  was  a  chief  of  assemblies. 
He  was  a  sharp  sword  and  two-edged.  He  was  the  exponent 
and  champion  of  frank  and  fearless  argument.  Malignity 
might  vituperate,  but  he  did  not  pause.  Malice  might  misrep 
resent  him,  but  he  never  sulked.  Cunning  was  not  in  him,  nor 
little  envy,  nor  treachery.  He  met  each  new  issue  as  it  arose, 
and,  his  enemies  themselves  being  judges,  he  was  never  put  to 
the  worse  in  free  and  open  encounter.  Nor  were  his  strokes 
sporadic  or  inconsecutive.  He  stayed  well.  At  Philadelphia 
he  thralled  his  auditors  thro  a  speech  of  six  hours,  and  at 
each  point  of  controversy  thro  all  those  momentous  ses 
sions  he  was  armed  and  alert.  Never  did  he  for  one  repulse 
forego  his  purpose.  Continuity  was  his  secret.  He  sought  to 
show  the  symmetry  of  that  which  he  beheld  and  was  glad  that 
"from  Discussion's  lips"  it  should  be 

"  Set  in  all  lights  by  many  minds 
To  bind  the  interest  of  all."     [Applause.] 

"The  noble  and  magnificent  perspective  of  a  great  federal 
republic"  filled  his  eyes,  and  he,  too,  was  not  disobedient  unto 
the  heavenly  vision.  Life,  fortune,  honor  were  to  that  sacredly 
rendered,  ungrudgingly,  unweariedly,  unregrettingly,  and, 
thank  God,  with  absolute  success.  He  had  no  secrets  from  his 
country!  [Cries  of  "  Bravo! "]  To  the  versatility,  the  acumen, 
the  deep  symmetrical  strength  of  this  rare  being  all  witnesses 
agree.  Morris,  Kent,  Story,  Marshall  (by  both  direct  tribute 
and  judicial  decisions),  Von  Hoist,  and  a  hundred  more  exalt 


HIS   RELATIVE   RANK  IS 

his  work.  Bryce  says:  "He  stands  in  the  front  rank  of  a 
generation  never  surpassed  in  history."  For  remember  the 
eighteenth  cycle,  if  you  would  be  just  to  it,  not  by  its  mori 
bund  first  seventy  years,  but  by  the  tragic  awakenings  of  its 
last  quarter.  Guizot  said:  "He  powerfully  contributed  to 
secure  to  the  constitution  its  every  element  of  order,  force  and 
duration."  Talleyrand  said  that  he  "never  knew  his  equal." 
"  He  has  divined  Europe."  And  what  schoolboy  does  not 
know  Webster's  sonorous  acclaim?  "He  smote  the  rock  of 
national  resources  and  the  waters  gushed  forth.  He  touched 
the  corpse  of  national  credit  and  it  sprang  to  its  feet."  For 
my  part,  I  venture  especially  to  affirm  Hamilton's  rare  magna 
nimity.  In  a  day  of  reckless  political  envy  he,  with  Washing 
ton,  shines  exceptional.  Adams,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Monroe, 
make  this  excellence  of  his  vivid  by  contrast.  When  I  medi 
tate  the  deep  damnation  of  his  taking-off,  it  is  piteous  to  recall 
that  but  a  little  earlier  he  had  upon  entreaty  made  a  private 
loan  to  the  dastard  who  slew  him.  Of  all  those  federalists 
who 

"  Wrought  in  a  sad  sincerity, 
And  builded  better  than  they  knew," 

Hamilton  is  in  the  van. 

It  was  he  who  had  made  Webster's  best  possible,  and  his 
worst  impossible.  It  was  Hamilton's  spirit  that  replied  to 
Hayne.  It  was  Hamilton's  spirit  that  spoke  thro  Jack 
son's  lips  to  the  nullifiers,  and,  alas,  the  lack  of  it  that  suc 
cumbed  to  the  devious  and  disastrous  compromise  that  fol 
lowed.  It  was  Hamilton's  soul  that  made  way  for  Lincoln 
and  for  liberty.  We  dwell,  gentlemen,  under  the  roof  he  fast 
ened,  and  which  of  us  will  not,  with  his  heart  in  his  throat, 
remember  the  legacy  of  that  leader  of  leaders,  and  say  with 
a  gratitude  that  is  also  a  vow,  "I,  too,  am  a  Federalist." 
[Applause.]  Let  me  turn  you  rapidly  toward  some  of  the 
memorials  of  his  commanding  fame,  whose  spirit  reigns  here 
tonight,  and  so  approach  the  swift  review  of  that  greatest 
result  which  is  his  pre-eminence  and  crown.  And  let  me 


16  ALEXANDER    HAMILTON 

diverge  somewhat  from  the  historical  order  to  seek  the  poeti 
cal.  At  the  base  of  all  the  public  miseries  succeeding  the 
peace  of  '83  lay  poverty  —  poverty  and  with  it  apathy.  Pro 
ductive  industry  frightened  and  unprotected,  credit  prostrate, 
the  army  muttering,  intense  localism  breeding  the  maggots  of 
secession,  quivering  and  perilous  unrest,  universal  faction, 
Congress  discordant  and  impotent.  It  was  a  needful  disci 
pline.  It  prepared  the  way  for  that  recognition  of  unity  of 
interest  which  alone  could  supersede  the  baleful  and  porten 
tous  distress.  While  Europe  sneered  at  us,  and  the  stoutest 
hearts  shrank  before  calamities  that  threatened  cataclysm, 
Hamilton,  as  the  first  secretary  of  the  treasureless  treasury, 
addressed  to  the  situation  his  whole  intellect.  Much  was 
chaotic  and  all  was  new.  Against  these  somber  skies  this 
mentor  of  the  first  administration  towered  alone.  Upon  his 
commanding  wisdom  was  laid  the  whole  and  fundamental 
problem  of  finance.  The  ship  of  state,  such  as  it  was,  no  lofty 
frigate  then,  but  a  water-logged  schooner  rather,  plunged  and 
rolled  amid  cross  currents  and  upon  a  lee  shore.  The  crew 
was  spent  and  all  but  mutinous.  "Sauve  qui  peut,"  was  a 
gaining  cry.  It  was  this  indomitable  pilot  who  brought  the 
craft  thro  the  perils  of  great  waters  and  safe  to  port.  For 
eign  censors  stood  amazed  as  Hamilton  set  fast  our  public 
credit  upon  the  eternal  rock  of  honesty.  Woe  betide  the  hand 
that  would  unwrite  his  work,  and  that  would,  printing  a  coun 
terfeit  presentment  of  Liberty  upon  fifty-one  cents'  worth  of 
silver,  invite  credulity  "to  trust  in  God"  for  the  other  forty- 
nine!  [Loud  cheers.]  No;  true  faith  in  God  involves  good 
faith  toward  men.  The  philosophy  of  fiat  currency — be  it  of 
paper  or  of  pewter — leads  to  a  maudlin  ethics,  and  horrors 
untold  lie  that  way.  The  eighth  commandment  is  not  to  be 
repealed,  even  for  silly  Americans.  Nothing  comes  so  dear  at 
last  as  cheap  money,  and  they  who  urge  it  would  worst  rob 
the  least  able;  for  the  fewer  dollars  a  man  has  the  more  need 
that  they  be  of  the  very  best  in  all  the  markets  of  the  world. 
We  do  not  yet  want  to  be  an  argentine  republic.  Nor  can 


THE   COLLEGE    NAMED    FOR    HIM  *7 

sectionalism  in  finance  live  long,  putting,  as  it  does,  a  penalty 
upon  that  capital  which  is  the  surest  friend  of  the  craftsman. 
[Applause.]  The  hand  of  Hamilton  traced  the  outline  and 
wrought  out  the  whole  detail  of  a  system  whose  soundness 
was  proven  in  its  success  and  stability.  Revenue,  currency,  a 
funded  debt,  the  mint,  the  bank,  were  creations  of  a  skill  that 
fathomed  both  needs  arid  resources.  West  Point  was  Hamil 
ton's  idea.  His  forecast  planned  for  and  frustrated  the  immi 
nent  war  with  France.  The  so-called  Monroe  doctrine  was 
but  a  plagiarism  of  Hamilton's  proclamation  of  neutrality. 
The  exalted  patriotism  and  still  pertinent  admonitions  of 
Washington's  farewell  address  were  submitted  to  and  touched 
by  the  pen  that  he  so  long  had  trusted  without  disappointment. 

And  now,  with  apology,  I  advert  to  that  college  sitting  at 
the  very  core  of  this  imperial  State  and  binding  about  her 
brow,  as  a  chaplet,  that  name  which  tonight  you  delight  to 
honor.  Kirkland,  the  great  Indian  lover,  was  patriot,  too,  and 
army  chaplain  at  Fort  Stanwix.  Hamilton  knew  him  well  and 
advised  with  and  assisted  the  missionary's  hope  to  plant,  under 
"the  smiles  of  the  God  of  wisdom,"  a  true  school  upon  the 
far  frontiers.  As  an  active  member  of  that  Board  of  Regents 
whose  comprehensive  idea  so  well  fitted  his  synthetic  temper — 
(that  Board  whose  present  chancellor  is  one  of  our  college's 
most  honored  sons,  and  one  of  whose  most  distinguished 
members,  my  friend,  Dr.  McKelway,  will  address  you  tonight) 
— Hamilton  was  chosen  as  chief  sponsor  and  became  the  first 
charter  applicant  and  trustee  of  the  academy  which  rapidly 
grew  into  the  college.  Steuben  laid  the  corner  stone  in  1794. 
Have  we  not  good  right  with  such  associations  proudly  to 
wear  as  our  distinctive  colors  the  Continental  blue  and  buff  ? 
We  cherish  that  history  and  would  honor  it.  For  more  than 
thirty  years  our  commencements  have  heard  a  competitive 
prize  oration  upon  some  feature  of  the  work  of  New  York's 
foremost  son.  With  this  goes  also  a  parallel  oration  "The 
Duties  of  Educated  Young  Men  to  the  State."  Is  it  any  won- 


1.8  ALEXANDER   HAMILTON 

der  that  from  that  high  hilltop  183  men — with  General  Hawley 
among  them — went  down  to  the  great  war  to  maintain  the 
doctrines  of  the  Federalist?  That  was  one  for  every  six  of 
the  sons  then  born  to  us.  [Applause.]  Is  it  any  wonder  that 
Dr.  Elihu  Root  sat  in  a  group  of  nine  who  love  that  old  cam 
pus,  at  the  very  centre  of  the  tasks  of  the  New  York  Constitu 
tional  Convention  of  last  summer,  and  who  well  paid  the  inter 
est  (if  any  was  in  arrears)  upon  that  old  charter  of  1793? 
[Cheers.]  Some  things  go  by  avoirdupois,  but  Alexander 
Hamilton  is  to  be  taken  by  Troy  weight.  When  I  reckon 
patriotism,  eloquence,  effectiveness,  I  am  well  content  to  be 
an  alumnus  of  a  little  college  of  large  men.  And,  by  the  way, 
when  some  day  Brooklyn  is  making  her  last  will  and  testa 
ment  and  all  your  treasures  are  bequeathing,  remember  that 
I  now  put  in  a  plea  for  that  noble  statue  which  guards  and 
glorifies  your  doors.  What  a  figure  of  speech  it  is,  and  with 
what  difficnlty  I  have  carried  past  it  that  most  brittle  tenth 
commandment !  I  fear  if  it  were  more  portable,  that  nothing 
short  of  force  would  replevin  it  from  beneath  those  swinging 
elms  where  it  ought  to  stand.  [Applause.]  That  ardent  atti 
tude  recalls  the  scenes  at  Poughkeepsie.  With  all  his  soul  he 
pleaded  and  by  a  majority  so  small  that  one  shivers  to  recall 
the  parliamentary  chances,  he  won,  and  was  the  father  of  the 
Constitution.  It  was  no  still-birth,  but  alive.  What  a  voice  it 
had,  and  what  a  child  it  is,  to  be  sure,  this  year  of  grace 
1895 — its  benignant  and  penetrating  eyes  still  bright  with 
youth  and  liberty.  But  it  was  born,  as  every  man-child  is 
born,  in  anguish. 

"  For  all  the  past  of  time  reveals 

A  bridal  dawn  of  thunder  peals, 
When  truth  hath  wedded  fact."    [Applause.] 

Thirteen  distinct  and  various  sovereignties,  wrangling,  greedy, 
stubborn,  could  not  long  cohere  under  an  arrangement  which 
was  at  best  of  provisional  utility,  and  which  Washington  de 
scribed  as  "a  shadow  without  a  substance."  "  If  the  federal 
government  should  lose  its  authority  civil  war  would  certainly 


THE   DAWN   OF   NATIONAL   UNITY  I<? 

follow,"  was  Hamilton's  prediction.  But  that  authority  would 
be  lost  unless  vitally  strengthened.  He  saw  the  menace  and 
reading  the  analogy  of  dead  republics  prepared  with  astute 
decision  to  parry  it.  Rivalry  meant  ruin,  sympathy  meant 
strength.  The  coalition  of  fragments  must  be  changed  into 
11  a  solid  coercive  union."  No  mere  treaty  alliance  would  do. 
That  was,  as  Madison  said,  "  imbecile,  discordant,  precarious." 
The  idea  of  confederacy  had  shown  itself  incapable  to  realize 
that  community  of  life  —  that  latent,  but  crescent,  sense  of 
nationality  which  was  the  inward  voice  of  America's  providen 
tial  calling.  Germany  and  Italy,  thro  their  long  and  pain 
ful  gestations,  afford  us  similar  instances  of  the  inadequacy  of 
the  confederation  theory  to  affirm  the  mission  of  a  homogen 
eous  people.  That  theory  is  over-centrifugal.  Our  revolution, 
whose  success  is  one  of  the  marvels,  almost  miracles,  of  his 
tory,  had  wakened  an  instinct,  but  the  years  of  process  were 
still  necessary  to  show  out  the  disintegrating  elements  of  a 
selfish,  vacillating  and  irascible  colonialism.  Like  the  twins 
in  the  womb  of  Rebekah  the  old  divisive  spirit  struggled  with 
the  new  cohesive  spirit.  Esau  came  first,  but  the  nobler  off 
spring  was  the  later  and  it  was  revealed  "  the  elder  shall  serve 
the  younger."  The  national  idea  was  growing.  The  very 
word  "  continental  "  was  significant.  "  We,  the  people  "  ran 
the  declaration.  [Applause.]  The  constitution  was  an  in 
terpretation  of  a  life  anterior  to  itself.  The  instrument  was 
the  demonstration  of  prior  fact.  Geography  and  history  blend 
ed  to  affirm  this  destiny  of  wedlock.  Many  stars,  one  constel 
lation —  "an  indestructible  union  of  indestructible  states" — 
toward  that  we  tended  and  to  that  we  came.  Well  writes  Mul- 
ford,  in  that  great  treatise  of  his  on  the  Nation  —  "There  has 
been  in  the  history  of  no  people  the  witness  to  a  higher  unity." 
But  eyes  were  dull  then.  The  body  was  suffering  with  its 
schismatical  parts.  In  the  spirit  of  sectionalism  which  is  es 
sential  disunion,  province  was  saying  to  province  —  "I  have 
no  need  of  thee."  Perverse  local  interests  were  ready  to  write 
severalty  where  God  had  written  commonalty.  The  wonder 


2O  ALEXANDER    HAMILTON 

is  that  any  hand  could  stroke  those  angry  seas  into  rhythm. 
[Cheers.]  When  we  recall  the  reluctance,  not  only  of  the  Car- 
olinas,  but  of  selfish  Massachusetts,  cranky  Rhode  Island  and 
greedy  New  York,  and  recall  the  slender  margin  by  which  all 
this  insularity  was  overcome,  we  may  well  tremble  and  praise. 
Hamilton  never  bated  a  jot  of  his  purpose.  By  every  tireless 
resource  he  explained,  advocated,  appealed.  The  sequel  vin 
dicates  him.  The  present  Empire  State  is  the  reply  to  the 
dismal  forebodings  of  those  then  in  it  who  assailed  his  work. 
In  the  light  of  events  he  stands  forth  as  the  one  great  prophet 
amid  a  throng  of  doleful  prognosticators.  That  mighty  sum 
in  complex  fractions  was  done  —  Hamilton  had  brought  them  to 
a  common  denominator.  First  came  dear  little  Delaware,  the 
"blue  hen"  with  her  chickens,  and  may  she  never  be  degraded 
by  electing  corrupt  men  to  her  places  of  honor!  [Applause.] 
Last  came  Rhode  Island  —  all  in,  and  the  ark  floated.  The 
constitution  was  a  happy  mean  between  confederacy  on  the 
one  hand  and  imperialism  on  the  other.  The  structure  of  the 
Senate,  which  only  rash  impatience  undervalues,  illustrates  the 
counterpoise  of  the  system.  That  a  framework  of  government, 
so  flexible  yet  so  firm,  and  with  so  much  that  was  experimental, 
could  be  made  de  novo,  is  the  wonder  of  political  philosophy. 
Hamilton  was  accused  of  monarchial  tendencies  because  he  dis 
trusted  the  tyranny  of  an  unmixed  democracy.  But  he  only 
appealed  to  the  restraints  of  that  second  sense  which  ought  to 
triumph  over  extempore  impulse.  If  you  will  pardon  the 
anachronism,  I  will  say  that  it  was  air-break  offsetting  steam- 
chest —  popular  power  working  in  both  and  in  balance  —  safety 
complementing  speed.  The  Senate,  with  its  check  upon  the 
haste  of  untried  majorities,  says  Think  twice.  [Loud  ap 
plause.]  They  tell  us  that  Hamilton  was  aristocratical.  In 
the  good  and  accurate  sense  he  was  that,  but  not  in  the  sense 
of  promoting  oligarchy.  He  longed  to  have  a  government  by 
the  best.  Who  does  not  ?  [Cheers.]  If  we  have  made  of  his 
electoral  college  an  elaborate  cui  bono,  that  may  show  him  to 
have  been  too  sanguine  of  his  political  heirs,  it  does  not  prove 


MAN   AGAINST   PREROGATIVE  31 

his  theory  to  have  been  wrong.  Fending  alike  the  dangers 
from  the  imperium  and  the  vulgus,  from  scented  pride  and 
unsoaped  envy,  he  steered  by  the  middle  channel.  Our  trou 
bles  have  not  been  from  the  chart,  but  from  the  crew !  The 
white  of  an  egg  and  the  venom  of  a  rattlesnake  are  both  albu 
men.  The  difference  between  food  and  poison  is  a  matter  of 
slight  chemical  proportion.  The  revolution  was  a  mighty  evo 
lution.  It  was  at  last  perceived  to  have  been  a  struggle  for 
English  liberties,  too  ;  that  Burke  and  Chatham  were  right,  and 
the  fatuous  Lord  North  and  the  fat-witted  George  III.  were 
wrong.  We  had  fought  the  good  fight  of  a  man  against  pre 
rogative,  as  we  fought  again  for  labor  as  against  caste.  That 
was  true,  even  if  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  great  tide-waiter  of  the 
nineteenth  century  [applause  and  laughter],  could  not  see  it; 
even  if  that  licensed  and  fascinating  scold  Carlyle  did  interpret 
the  roar  and  smoke  of  our  civil  war  as  "the  burning  out  of  an 
old  chimney,"  and  seemed  not  to  care  if  the  house  went  with 
it.  John  Bull  whistled,  but  found  his  whistle  a  costly  toy.  So 
little  do  men  perceive  of  where  the  point  lies  whose  heads  are 
thick  with  the  wit  of  Punch.  [Laughter  and  applause.]  But 
the  beginning  was  not  the  end,  nor  is  the  end  yet,  tho  "now 
is  our  salvation  nearer  than  when  we  first  believed."  The  old  fac 
tional  elements  gathered  in  partisan  antagonism.  It  may  be 
gravely  doubted  whether  if  that  tortuous  and  temporizing  reac 
tionary,  Thomas  Jefferson,  had  not  fortunately  been  absent  in 
France  his  jealous  weight  would  not  have  sufficed  to  "turn  the 
poised  and  trembling  scale"  away  from  nationality.  We  moved 
in  and  began  to  live  under  the  "new  roof."  Thenceon  our 
history  becomes  an  effort  to  realize  both  the  Constitution  and 
ourselves.  Hamilton  thought  the  Union  "might  endure  thirty 
years" — how  nearly  did  he  divine  the  reach  of  the  Virginia 
resolutions  and  the  date  of  nullification  !  —  but  even  he  did  not 
see  that  the  instrument  was  an  effect  rather  than  a  cause,  that 
while  it  registered  so  much  it  subtended  far  more !  It  was  a 
law;  but  the  nation  was  a  life.  Great  as  were  the  specific 
bequests  the  residuum  was^  far  greater.  The  testators  did  not 


22  ALEXANDER    HAMILTON 

measure  their  legacy.  They  did  not  then  know  that  they  were 
bequeathing  an  estate,  which  some  perfervid  orator  described 
as  "bounded  on  the  north  by  the  aurora,  on  the  east  by  the 
sunrise,  on  the  south  by  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes,  and 
on  the  west  by  the  day  of  judgment !"  [Cheers.] 

For  three-score  years  and  ten,  two  principles,  the  centripetal 
and  the  centrifugal,  were  in  collision,  and  making  ready  to 
grapple.  Then,  after  that  appointed  labor  and  sorrow,  the 
enduring  knowledge  that  our  orbit  is  an  ellipse,  with  its  two 
foci,  both  determinate  and  mutual.  It  was  the  school  of  pain: 
but  it  was  God's  !  It  was  sharp  surgery:  but  with  a  blessed  end. 
The  very  being  of  this  Union  went  into  the  crucible,  and  melted 
in  the  furnace  of  Antietam,  and  Shiloh,  and  Chickamauga,  and 
the  Wilderness.  We,  too,  as  all-American,  will  cherish  the 
memory  of  the  devoted,  if  mistaken,  bravery  of  Albert  Sidney 
Johnson  and  of  Stonewall  Jackson,  and  of  his  sword  who  was 
turned  back  from  Round  Top,  while  we  repudiate  the  oligarchic 
fallacies  of  Toombs  and  Stephens.  Where  these  failed  let  no 
feebler  hands  attempt.  The  cause  of  separation  is  a  lost  cause  ! 
The  great  replevin  has  been  served  !  I  am  a  Federalist !  It  is 
no  vague  theory.  It  affirms  the  solidarity,  the  common  destiny, 
of  a  people.  I  am  with  Washington  as  against  Jefferson,  for 
John  Jay  as  against  George  Clinton,  for  Webster  as  against 
Calhoun,  for  Lincoln  as  against  Davis,  for  those  two  South 
erners,  Farragut  and  Thomas,  against  Lee ;  for  Alexander 
Hamilton,  as  against  that  other,  whose  treacherous  nature 
Hamilton  so  clearly  discovered,  and  who  with  treason  and 
murder  upon  his  soul,  went  out  from  the  vice-presidency  as 
Aaron  of  old  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord — a  leper.  [Great 
applause.]  The  whole  is  both  the  sum  of  all  its  parts,  and  is 
itself  greater  than  that  sum.  True  patriotism  is  synthetic.  I 
love  best  my  duty  to  the  whole.  Those  dreadful  swaths  of  the 
dead  were  not  reaped  for  nought !  While  the  uncounted  brave 
sleep  on,  and  the  constellations  march  west  until  the  reveille  of 
the  archangel,  let  the  survivors  and  heirs  of  that  bitter  time 
lock  hands,  and  standing  with  blending  cheers  and  tears  above 


A   UNION   INDISSEVERABLE    AND    PURE  23 

the  buried  armies,  register  an  implacable  oath  that  no  bastard 
doctrine  of  unfraternity  shall  ever  again  assail  our  common 
hearthstone  !  And  let  history  go  for  this  at  least,  that  the  Con 
stitution  down  to  its  latest  amendment  shall  be  best  interpreted 
by  its  friends.  [Applause.]  We  are  called  to  meet  the  trials 
of  a  new  age.  Our  expanding  nation  requires  that,  as  by  a 
pantagraph,  old  fundamental  principles  be  extended  to  en 
larged  problems.  This  Union  that  we  love  is  imperial  in 
opportunity,  therefore  in  duty.  Ability  is  responsibility.  By 
the  grace  of  God  responsibility  is  ability.  What  we  ought,  we 
can  !  Let  us  swear  it — what  we  can,  we  will. 

So  once  as  old  Leonidas 

Held  his,  will  we  our  bivouac, 
With  daybreak  crowd  the  narrow  pass, 

And  cram  the  droves  of  devils  back. 
So,  thundering  down  the  thorofare, 

Against  the  odds  and  chaos  rout, 
With  lightning  in  his  streaming  hair, 

Blazed  Sheridan  !  and  "  Right  about," 
With  will  that  made  the  rebel  writhe, 

The  army's  dulled  edged  whetting  keen, 
Swung  left,  swung  right,  the  loyal  scythe, 

And  mowed  the  Shenandoah  clean  ! 
Spite  of  torpedoes  in  the  bay, 

So  Farragut,  with  steady  keel, 
Up  to  close  gunshot  split  the  way, 

And  set  the  stars  above  Mobile  ! 
And  so,  to  bless  the  coming  years, 

And  in  the  faith  of  heaven  born, 
We'll  hail  the  call  for  volunteers;  — 

For  righteous  hope  was  ne'er  forlorn  ! 
Ah  !  'tis  time  we  were  beginning 

To  build  our  platforms  to  the  rock; 
Smooth  planks  and  rotten  underpinning 

Can  never  bide  the  future's  shock. 
So  hew  them  rough,  but  hew  them  strong  — 

Stout  creeds  mean  burly  deeds  again  — 
Trample  the  tom-tom  and  the  gong, 

Cease  worshipping  the  weather  vane. 
Let  low  commercial  special  pleas, 


*4  ALEXANDER    HAMILTON 

With  smiting  knees,  spell  out  their  doom  ! 
Ungag  the  great  moralities, 

Give  clean  men  clean  sweep  with  clean  broom. 
So  shall  a  people's  candidate 

Again  in  spotless  toga  wait. 
Out  on  the  shuffled  lying  tissues  ! 

What  patriots  mean,  let  parties  say, 
Confront  the  living,  bleeding  issues, 

And  do  the  deeds  that  dare  today.    [Loud  applause.] 

No  State  bears  the  name  of  Hamilton,  as  none  is  yet  named 
for  Lincoln:  but  this  Union  of  States,  one  endowment,  one  land, 
one  history,  one  task,  one  flag,  one  God,  is  the  deathless  memo 
rial  of  them  both.  I  join  their  names  and  their  service.  Let 
it  grow  from  more  to  more,  as  the  ample  fulfillment  of  them 
both — a  realm  of  magnificent,  because  equal,  laws,  adminis 
tered  by  fearless,  because  incorruptible,  men.  Until  out  of  the 
calm  eternities  shall  break  the  days  of  the  Son  of  Man,  let  it 
be  our  unanimous  prayer  and  our  unshaken  pledge,  "Each  of 
us  for  every  other,  and  God  for  us  all!"  [Loud  and  long- 
continued  applause.] 


Hbrabam  Uincolru 

AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE 

THE  UNION  LEAGUE  CLUB   OF  BROOKLYN, 

FEBRUARY  12,  i8g$. 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen — It  is  time  for  an  American 
Book  of  Days.  The  land  we  love  is  old  enough  and  rich 
enough  in  men  and  achievements  to  have  a  rubricated  record 
all  its  own. 

The  dates  which  punctuate  its  great  events,  its  births  and 
burials,  its  successive  and  interwoven  crises  of  national  evolu 
tion,  its  high  tides  and  low,  its  "  storms  and  tempests  greater 
than  almanacs  can  report,"  its  feasts  and  fasts,  its  anguish  and 
its  anthems — these  dates  make  a  calendar  with  all  its  weeks 
illuminated  and  emphatic.  More  than  we  often  pause  to 
remember  are  we  rich  in  history,  not  of  a  continental,  but  of  a 
world-wide  significance.  Our  life  is  of  inter-centurial  and 
planetary  import.  Each  month  is  a  volume,  with  its  peculiar, 
illustrious  and  garlanded  events.  Wonder  at  all  that  our 
Aprils  have  witnessed,  recall  the  annals  of  our  great  Julys,  and 
then,  you  who  love  your  country  and  treasure  in  your  hearts 
her  excellences  of  character  and  action — her  sins,  her  repent 
ances,  her  renewed  probations — turn  your  thoughts  to  Febru 
ary,  least  in  length  of  the  twelve,  but  with  two  natal  days,  star- 
set  and  resplendent,  and  own  the  month  that  has  such  a  22d 
and  such  a  I2th,  the  chief  and  brightest  in  all  the  round  of  the 
zodiac ! 

We  are  met,  under  the  compulsions  of  a  common  reverence, 
to  keep  high  festival,  upon  one  of  Columbia's  cradle-nights, 
nay,  to  recall  the  gift,  thro  us,  of  one  of  the  royal  heirs  of 
a  world's  admiration  and  affection.  Ours  indeed  he  is:  but 


26  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

not  ours  only.  The  pantheon  of  Time  claims  him  as  one  of 
Humanity's  types  and  leaders.  The  "  razure  of  oblivion  "  shall 
never  touch  his  story,  nor  devotion  to  its  high  import  become 
obsolete. 

Amid  the  awed  and  woful  group  that  watched  that  wild 
April  night  sink  to  the  ashen  dawn,  Stanton  was  one,  and 
when  all  was  ended,  it  was  his  voice  that  spake  out  in  solemn 
and  befitting  prophecy,  "  Now  he  belongs  to  the  ages."  The 
ages  claim  him.  Thenceforward  no  one  city,  commonwealth 
or  clime  could  appropriate  him.  History  admits  no  transient 
and  local  monopoly  to  intrude  between  her  and  her  elect  dead. 
They  are  her  own.  She  is  their  Rizpah  and  their  Rachel. 

"Never  before  that  startled  morning" — (wrote  Lowell,  at 
the  conclusion  of  that  essay  whose  strong  and  chiseled  para 
graphs  go  with  the  masculine  emotion  of  his  commemoration 
ode  to  make  up  his  complete  and  unsurpassed  tribute) — 
"  Never  before  that  startled  morning  did  such  multitudes  of 
men  shed  tears  for  one  they  had  never  seen.  Never  was 
funeral  panegyric  so  eloquent  as  the  silent  look  of  sympathy 
which  strangers  exchanged  when  they  met  on  that  day.  Their 
common  manhood  had  lost  a  kinsman." 

That  day  is  one  of  the  strange  indelible  memories  of  my 
boyhood.  How  long  and  how  little  seems  this  interval  of 
thirty  years  !  But  as  each  year  has  gone,  with  what  certainty 
of  just  conviction,  it  has  added  one  more  tier  to  the  masonry 
whereon  is  founded  that  ascendant  and  invulnerable  fame. 
How  such  a  story  effaces  the  poor  pride  of  language  !  How 
unequal  are  iridescent  word-bubbles  to  catch  and  carry  the  trem 
ulous  half-lights  and  the  true  splendors  of  that  luminiferous 
character  !  How  must  the  soul  stammer  and  sob  that  yields 
to  the  whole  appeal  of  a  spirit  so  great,  so  genuine,  so  gentle. 
Little  indeed  will  the  world  heed,  nor  long  remember,  what 
any  lips  can  now  say  of  him, —  enough  that  it  will  never  forget 
what  he  did  for  us  and  for  all  men. 

Who,  then,  shall  presume  to  think  that  he  has  well  summar 
ized  or  at  all  completely  analyzed  the  contents  of  such  a  life  ? 


AN   IMMORTAL    MEMORY  *7 

I  lay  my  withering  blossoms  with  those  of  his  innumerable 
lovers,  knowing  that  were  their  stems  of  gold  and  their  petals 
of  ruby,  these  would  rust  and  dim  long  before  the  tooth  of 
time  had  touched  his  immortal  renown.  I  deprecate  your 
heed  to  me,  even  while  I  entreat  it.  Think  round,  past,  over, 
beyond,  my  frail  and  slender  utterances.  Let  your  reasoned 
gratitude  and  heartfelt  admiration  weave  their  own  tributes  in 
words  that  no  man  can  utter.  Let  the  "mystic  chords"  that 
he  knew  so  well  to  touch  into  music,  sound  their  master's  re 
quiem.  Sursum  Corda  !  He  was  God's  gracious  gift  to  a  tor 
mented  and  distracted  time.  He  took  who  gave.  He  who 
gave  and  took,  guards  the  inaccessible  honor  of  a  supreme  and 
solitary  soul,  who,  "having  served  his  generation  by  the  will 
of  God,  fell  on  sleep." 

Bare-browed  and  wet-eyed,  we  stand  in  this  our  day  under  a  fir 
mament  whose  four-and-forty  stars,  unnamed  and  indistinguish 
able  by  any  claim  of  severalty,  make  one  unrivalled  and  un 
quenchable  constellation,  and  highly  resolve  that  Abraham 
Lincoln  shall  not  have  lived  in  vain  nor  vainly  died  ! 

And  we  declare  our  faith  that  the  theme  of  that  lost  leader's 
greatness  will  still  be  new,  curious,  alluring,  inspiring,  until 
America  shall  have  failed  of  her  memory,  until  patriotism  is 
senile,  until  self-sacrifice  is  no  longer  cogent,  until  popular 
government  is  moribund  and  democracy  is  numbered  with  the 
lost  arts. 

In  the  city  of  Chicago,  at  the  entrance  of  the  beautiful  park 
that  bears  his  name,  there  is  placed  commandingly,  a  statue  of 
our  greatest  President. 

Doubtless  nearly  all  of  you  are  familiar  with  its  noble  and 
unassuming  pose.  But  what  has  always  most  impressed  my 
imagination  is  that  which  stands  just  behind  the  exalted 
figure  of  the  man  —  the  empty  chair  !  Never  was  vacant  throne 
so  suggestive  and  so  full.  Well  might  those  words  have  been 
sculptured  there  which  Lincoln  uttered  so  early  as  1858  — 
"Tho  I  now  sink  out  of  view,  I  believe  I  have  made  some 
marks  which  will  tell  for  the  cause  of  liberty  long  after  I  am 


28  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

gone."  All  of  the  memorials  of  such  a  nature  and  the  remin 
iscences  of  such  a  life  are  significant  and  inestimably  precious. 
We  are  to  be  glad  that  the  narrative  by  his  partner,  Herndon, 
both  establishes  so  much  intimate  fact  and  dispels  so  much 
possible  myth.  It  was  an  unusual  witticism  of  Longfellow's 
that  auto-biography  is  what  biography  ought  to  be  !  This 
close  friend  more  than  any  other,  or  than  all  others,  sets  forth 
the  real  personality  without  gloss  or  apology.  We  want  the 
negative  to  be  untouched  in  a  single  line,  that  we  may  get  the 
truest  impression  of  one  who  sat,  quite  behind  what  any  strange 
or  casual  eye  could  see,  within  a  most  sensitive  reticence. 
Frank  as  Lincoln  was,  inaustere,  accessible  —  there  was  an  in 
wardness  and  reserve  behind  whose  further  curtains  few  pen 
etrated,  and  they  but  seldom.  It  is  in  his  public  words  that 
we  receive  the  deepest  revelations  of  that  strong  and  longing 
soul,  so  tender  and  so  taciturn.  His  phenomenal  gift  of  narrative 
was  the  alleviation  not  the  assertion  of  his  inmost  self.  Talk 
was  his  refuge  from  a  proud  and  stately  sorrow,  a  most  pathetic 
and  melancholy  reverie.  He  was  born  under  the  sign  of 
Aquarius.  His  life  was  clouded  and  rainy.  Some  of  the 
sweetest  sources  of  happiness  were  frozen  to  him.  His  yearn 
ing  spirit  turned  upon  itself  and  for  the  most  part  sealed  its 
records.  Upon  that  Cromwellian  face  (for  tho  it  was  more 
than  Cromwell's,  it  was  Cromwellian,  wart  and  all)  there  were 
the  seams  of  early  responsibility  and  long  restraint,  and  in  all 
the  humor  of  his  smile  there  lurked  the  twitch  of  pain. 

We  all  know  the  story  of  his  early  days  —  Kentucky,  Indiana, 
Illinois  —  the  bare  poverty,  the  indomitable  struggle  to  learn, 
the  country  law  office  with  its  rough  clinic  of  human  beings  — 
its  pathology  of  affairs,  his  small  book  lore  and  yet  his  keen 
literary  susceptibility,  that  apparent  listlessness  in  which  he 
thought,  and  thought,  and  grew.  All  around,  as  we  see  it,  what 
a  wretched  school,  and  yet  what  a  schooling  God  gave  him 
there!  Soft  raiment  never  sat  well  upon  that  home-spun  king. 
Here,  providentially,  and  out  of  the  unlikeliest  origins,  was  six 
feet  and  four  inches  of  man.  Little  thripenny  minds  once 


HIS    INDIVIDUALITY  29 

sneered  at  his  suburbanity  and  thought  him  outlandish,  but 
splitting  fencing  or  riving  sophistry,  steering  a  flatboat  or  a 
government,  at  the  cabin  hearth  or  at  the  capital  of  the  Repub 
lic,  in  county  law  or  commander  of  armies  and  fleets  —  that 
man,  uncouth  of  limb  and  courtly  of  heart,  is  always  and  only 
Abraham  Lincoln  !  There  was  but  one,  there  will  be  no  other, 
the  mould  is  broken.  "  The  case  of  that  huge  spirit  is  now 
cold." 

Where  did  he  get  that  aquiline  wit,  that  shrewd  and  sensitive 
judgment,  that  pronged  logic,  that  felicity  of  instance,  that  sure 
touch  of  nature,  that  vital  and  saline  style  ?  Fort  he  was 
cunning  in  the  niceties  of  language  and  coined  wisdom  into 
colloquial  aphorism.  What  tough  sense,  what  absence  of  va 
poring,  what  conclusive  directness,  what  sagacious  transpa 
rency.  "Honest  Old  Abe"  —  what  a  thirty-third  degree  of 
popular  confidence  was  that!  Which  of  us  does  not  remember 
his  wish  that  other  generals  "would  get  some  whisky  of  the 
same  kind"  —  his  ballot- winning  remark  about  "swapping 
horses  while  crossing  a  stream"  —  his  appealling  fun  over 
"Uncle  Sam's  web  feet."  Thackeray,  once  for  all,  defined  a 
snob  as  "one  who  admires  mean  things  meanly."  A  great 
man  is  one  who  seeks  great  things  in  a  great  way.  So  was 
Lincoln  great.  He  "never  sold  the  truth  to  serve  the  hour." 

With  marvelous  development  he  rose  to  each  new  demand 
and  met  it  adequately,  and  there  was  never  a  day  when  he  was 
not  more  of  a  man  than  the  day  before.  Vast  tact  and  abso 
lute  rectitude  together.  He  was  a  student  of  occasion,  but 
never  in  the  shifty  and  selfish  sense  an  opportunist.  He  dis 
cerned  concrete  issues  and  was  no  doctrinaire.  He  cared  for 
results  and  was  no  respecter  of  persons.  He  used  what  he 
could  get,  and  so  got  what  he  could  use,  knowing  how  to  pur 
sue  that  high  expediency  whose  duty  it  is  both  to  forego  and 
to  transcend  mere  legalitys.  Astute  in  deliberation  and  biding 
his  time,  he  never  surrendered  to  others  one  ounce  of  his  own 
responsibility,  and  proved  his  wisdom  in  taking  "all  the  advice 
he  could  get  and  using  what  he  thought  best. 


3°  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

"Gentle,  plain,  just  and  resolute,"  he  surprised  those  who 
had  thought  to  control  him  by  his  revelations  of  aptitude  and 
of  decision.  Lowell  wrote:  "While  dealing  with  unheard-of 
complications  at  home,  he  must  soothe  a  hostile  neutrality 
abroad,  waiting  only  a  pretext  to  become  war."  What  tasks 
were  these  and  with  what  untried  tools  !  His  temper  equaled 
the  emergency.  He  wielded  war  measures  without  flinching, 
yet  always  as  an  elect  citizen,  and  so  loved  both  the  Union  and 
the  Constitution,  that  in  their  preservation  he  saved  the  one 
from  those  who  would  have  destroyed  it,  and  the  other  from 
those  who  would  have  defended  it  to  death  by  quibbles.  He 
saw  that  the  Union  was  the  very  life  of  the  Constitution — that 
academic  distinctions-are  trivial  in  a  struggle  for  existence  — 
he  could  not  consent  to  the  cult  of  a  disembodied  spirit,  nor 
protect  the  constitution  of  a  corpse !  His  elastic  tact  was  also 
stubborn.  He  refused  to  embroil  us  with  angry  England  in 
the  Trent  affair,  yet  made  the  bully  halt  when  thro  the  lips 
of  Minister  Adams  he  said:  "It  is  unnecessary  for  me  to 
remind  your  lordship  that  this  means  war!"  Even  to  John 
Bull  what  "Hosea  Bigelow"  called  "the  fencin'  stuff,"  seemed 
likely  to  come  a  little  too  high ! 

Lincoln's  self-restraint  was  not  that  of  "a  being  without 
parts  and  passions,"  but  of  one  controlling  his  forces  for  use. 
Of  slavery  he  said  in  '55:  "I  bite  my  lips  and  keep  quie:t" 
but,  a  while  later,  stirred  to  the  depths  by  the  seizure  of  a  free 
black  boy  at  New  Orleans,  he  said  —  and  I  take  his  indignation 
not  as  an  oath  but  as  a  vow — "By  God,  gentlemen,  I'll  make 
the  ground  of  this  country  too  hot  for  the  feet  of  slaves !"  It 
was  in  that  resolve  that  he  entered  upon  the  great  debate  in 
Illinois.  He  loved  peace:  but  as  a  "just  and  lasting  peace."  "I 
hope  it  will  come  soon,  and  come  to  stay,  and  so  come  as  to  be 
worth  the  keeping  for  all  future  time."  But  his  integrity  never 
blenched.  In  the  teeth  of  the  counsels  of  timid  friends  he 
crystalized  the  truth  in  1858.  "This  Union  cannot  endure,  half 
slave  and  half  free.  A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot 
stand."  Withal,  his  rugged  patience  was  as  cautious,  strategic, 


HIS  AUGUST  PATIENCE  3* 

diplomatic,  as  it  was  persistent  and  courageous.  Patience  in 
him  became  a  genius,  a  purpose  that  censors  could  neither 
hurry  nor  hinder. 

"  He  knew  to  bide  his  time; 

And  can  his  fame  abide 
Still  patient,  in  his  simple  faith  sublime, 

Till  the  wise  years  decide. 
Great  captains  with  their  guns  and  drums, 

Disturb  our  judgments  for  the  hour: 
But  at  last  silence  comes. 

These  all  are  gone,  and,  standing  like  a  tower, 
Our  children  shall  behold  his  fame; 

The  kindly,  earnest,  brave,  far-seeing  man, 
Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not  blame. 

New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American  !" 

This  many-sided,  yet  directly  simple  President,  this  greatest 
Democrat  of  history,  ennoblecl  the  people  by  trusting  them 
and  trusting  himself  to  them,  as  they  ennobled  themselves  by 
responding  to  that  trust.  "When  he  speaks,"  (wrote  Lowell 
in  1864,  in  that  monumental  essay  which  I  have  before  quoted) 
"  it  seems  as  if  the  people  were  listening  to  their  own  thinking 
aloud."  His  alert  ear  heard  always  that  little  click  which  pre 
cedes  the  striking  of  the  clock.  "  It  is  most  proper  (he  said 
at  Buffalo)  that  I  should  wait  and  see  the  developments  and 
get  all  the  light  possible,  so  that  when  I  do  speak  authorita 
tively  I  may  be  as  near  right  as  possible."  "  Why  should  there 
not  be  (so  went  his  first  inaugural)  a  patient  confidence  in  the 
ultimate  justice  of  the  people  ?  "  At  "  this  great  tribunal  "  he 
pleaded.  "This  is  essentially  a  peoples'  contest,"  ran  his  first 
message. 

He  knew  how  to  interpret  public  opinion,  and  it  answered 
him  with  a  mighty  and  unbetrayed  confidence.  He  both 
roused  it  to  self-recognition  and  registered  its  vast  resolve. 
The,  to  me,  most  moving  lyric  of  those  days  utters  that 
response  of  the  nation,  as  the  deed  vindicated  the  song: 

"  Six  hundred  thousand  loyal  men 
And  true  have  gone  before, 

And  we're  coming,  Father  Abraham, 
Three  hundred  thousand  more ! " 


32  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Verily  he  had  prophesied  well,  in  his  good-by  to  the  citizens 
of  Indianapolis,  "Of  the  people  when  they  rise  in  mass  in 
behalf  of  the  union  and  liberties  of  their  country,  truly  it  may 
be  said,  'The  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  them.' " 

This  soul  to  whose  noble  abstraction  and  dedicated  purpose 
the  small  gossip  of  the  world  was  naught,  drank  deep  the  cup 
of  vicarious  pain.  He  paid  daily  the  penalty  of  heroic  love. 
In  his  sympathy  he  became  a  sacrifice.  He  "bore  his  cross" 
for  the  soldiers  in  the  field  and  the  mothers  in  their  homes. 
And  all  the  while  he  was  "sustained  and  cheered  by  an  unfal 
tering  trust,"  a  "  faith  that  right  makes  might,"  "  that  in  some 
way  men  can  not  see  all  will  be  well  in  the  end."  He  deserves 
a  place  with  "the  elders  who  obtained  a  good  report  thro  faith," 
and  yet  who  only  foresaw  Canaan  and  the  Christ  to  be.  He 
came,  like  Moses,  no  further  than  Pisgah.  But  he  believed. 
He  believed  in  himself,  in  Arnerica,  in  man,  in  God,  and  in 
that  faith  he  climbed  the  steps  of  the  altar. 

He  was  at  once  a  poet  and  a  prophet;  he  had  that  intuition 
which  is  the  common  differential  of  both — that  insight  which 
is  foresight.  For  hear  him,  when  leaving  Springfield  for  "a 
duty  greater  than  has  devolved  upon  any  man  since  Washing 
ton" — "unless  the  great  God  who  assisted  him  shall  be  with 
me  and  aid  me,  I  must  fail:  but  if  the  same  omniscient  and 
almighty  arm  that  directed  and  protected  him  shall  guide  and 
support  me,  I  shall  not  fail  —  I  shall  succeed."  By  that  token 
so  was  it  unto  him.  I  read  and  reread  that  pathetic  invoca 
tion,  I  trace  his  growing  trust  in  supreme  mercy,  I  witness  him 
"lead  the  whole  nation  thro  paths  of  repentance  and  submis 
sion  to  the  Divine  will,"  I  hear  him  urge  "humble  penitence 
for  national  perverseness  and  disobedience,"  and  as  our  repre 
sentative  and  spokesman  say,  "If  every  drop  of  blood  drawn 
by  the  lash  thro  years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  repaid  by 
one  drawn  by  the  bullet,  still  must  we  say  our  God  is  right 
eous."  I  see  him  not  shrinking  nor  counting  the  chances  of 
his  own  life.  And  blessing  God  for  such  a  heart-born  testi 
mony  as  that  one  more,— -"Die  when  I  may,  I  want  it  said  of 


HIS    SUPREME    FAITH  33 

me  by  those  who  knew  me  best  that  I  always  plucked  a  thistle 
and  planted  a  flower  where  I  thought  a  flower  would  grow," — 
I  challenge  those  who  question  his  intrinsic  truth  toward  the 
Highest. 

Whatever  were  his  speculative  doubts,  born  of  wholly  inade 
quate  religious  teaching  and  hetchelled  by  experiences  that 
embitter  many  —  justice,  mercy,  humility,  reverence,  love,  stead 
fast  submission  to  God's  will  and  way,  these  are  the  elements 
of  the  piety  that  Heaven  accepts.  He  learned  to  pray  and 
to  intercede,  and  thro  a  temperate  life  he  pitied  the  widow 
and  the  fatherless  and  kept  himself  unspotted  from  the  world. 
"Pure  religion  and  undefiled  before  God  and  the  Father  is 
J:his."  Who  loves  what  Christ  loves,  loves  Christ.  This  high 
faith  availed  him  in  all  affairs.  He  was  no  vagarist.  Yet  see 
ing  and  seizing  the  possible,  he  strove  toward  the  stars.  He 
was  the  most  practical  of  idealists,  believing  that  what  should 
be  can  be,  and  that  what  should  be  and  can  be,  shall  be ! 

Per  aspera  ad  astra  —  thro  stripes  to  stars,  for  that  stands 
our  dear  flag.  It  is  the  seal  of  the  national  wedlock,  between 
each  state  and  the  Union,  and  that  which  God  hath  joined  to 
gether  no  man  shall  put  asunder! 

"Hard,  heavy,  knotty,  gnarly,  backed  with  wrath,"  says 
Herndon,  were  Lincoln's  words  as  in  '56  he  joined  the  party 
pledged  to  resist  the  extension  of  slavery. 

Lincoln  felt  the  unconscious  destiny  of  America  and  helped, 
in  the  forefront,  to  abate  the  taunt  of  the  world  that  our  eagle 
was  but  a  vulture.  In  that  stumbling  and  disastrous  night  his 
soul  was  one  that  believed  in  the  morning.  Only  a  base  and 
bastard  mind  can  forget  that  he  was  part  of  the  great  price 
wherewith  we  obtained  this  freedon.  The  lost  cause  of  caste 
was  a  triumphant  failure.  It  freed  the  white  man  most. 

"  We  ignorant  of  ourselves, 

Beg  often  our  own  harms,  which  the  wise  powers 
Deny  us  for  our  good.     So  find  we  profit 
By  losing  of  our  prayers." 

"The  struggle  of  today  (said  Lincoln's  message  of  Decem- 


34  ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

her,  1861)  is  for  a  vast  future  also."     Thankfully  I  quote  from 
a  true  poet: 

"  I  love  the  South.     I  fought  for  her 

From  Lookout  Mountain  to  the  sea, 
But  from  my  lips  thanksgivings  broke, 

When  that  black  idol,  breeding  drouth 
And  dearth  of  human  sympathy 

Thro  all  our  sweet  and  sensuous  South, 
Was,  with  its  chains  and  human  yoke, 

Blown  hell-ward  from  the  cannon's  mouth, 
While  Freedom  cheered  behind  the  smoke." 

Gentlemen,  recall,  you  who  can,  that  Good  Friday — all  those 
April  days  —  of  1865,  when  God  "shewed  us  hard  things  and 
made  us  to  drink  of  the  wine  of  astonishment,"  when  all  our 
victory  was  turned  into  mourning ! 

First,  horror,  then  incredulity,  then  anguish — one  wild,  con 
vulsed  sob,  "It  can  not,  must  not,  shall  not,  be!"  And  then 
the  reeling  certainty  that  it  was,  and  an  orphaned  nation  calling, 
"  My  father,  my  father,  the  chariot  of  Israel  and  the  horsemen 
thereof ! "  All  the  lowly  of  the  Earth  mourned,  and  in  that 
mourning  took  hope  for  the  universal  cause  of  the  people,  and 
so  the  great  conclave  of  universal  hearts  canonized  him  by 
acclaim.  Party  passions  withered  in  that  august  homage. 
Factious  critics  and  envious  detractors  stood  abashed  or  re 
pentant.  In  the  knowledge  of  what  it  had  lost  the  land  first 
realized  what  it  had  had.  So  that  catafalque  moved  thro  its 
slow  procession  of  twelve  hundred  miles.  Dirges,  minute  guns, 
flambeaus,  choirs,  bells,  and  everywhere  black  misery  and  pite 
ous  tears —  at  last,  Springfield.  The  faithful  tomb  unveiled  its 
bosom  to  take  to  its  trust  this  new  treasure,  and  the  troubled 
soul  was  at  peace.  But  already  that  soul  had  begun  to  keep 
its  endless  Easter.  The  hand  that  penned  the  proclamation 
has  touched  the  hand  of  that  lost  child  whom  the  father's 
heart  had  never  ceased  to  mourn.  Those  steps  have  come  out 
of  tribulation  and  found  that  One  who  "saved  others  and  him 
self  could  not  save."  An  offering?  Yes  —  his  own  tired  and 
thankful  soul !  A  gift  ?  Yes  —  not  a  scepter,  but  a  pen;  not  a 


SAFE   WITH   THE    GREAT  35 

crown,  but  a  broken  manacle.  "Well  done,  good  and"  —  the 
gates  are  closed  ! 

Once  more  I  cite  Abraham  Lincoln:  "We  cannot  escape 
history.  The  fiery  trial  thro  which  we  pass  will  light  us 
down  in  honor  or  dishonor  to  the  latest  generation  "  —  to  honor, 
noble  one  !  Contrasted  with  the  achievements  of  mere  con 
querors,  how  poor  is  all  their  prowess  and  ambition.  Where  is 
Bonaparte  by  the  side  of  that  tall  spirit.  Lincoln  has  one  soli 
tary  peer  in  history — William  of  Orange,  like  himself,  a  martyr 
to  his  patriotism.  The  first  administration  of  Washington  gives 
parallel  in  the  state  of  the  army,  the  treasury  and  public  opin 
ion:  but  these  were  not  war.  The  sorrow  for  Hamilton  is  an 
analogue.  I  think  of  these  three  as  the  three  greatest  Ameri 
cans. 

If  Lincoln  had  not  the  charm  of  Hamilton  and  the  urbane 
dignity  of  Washington,  he  had  a  sagacity  rivaling  the 
one,  a  patience  rivaling  the  other,  and  a  tenacity  that  sur 
passed  them  both.  But  I  would  not  compare  them;  I  would 
blend  them  all.  They  have  passed  under  Time's  impartial  and 
dispassionate  recognition.  The  place  of  Lincoln  is  secure  in 
the  judgment  of  mankind.  Words  can  add  nothing  now  to  that 
monolithic  fame.  Death  hath  no  more  dominion  over  him. 
He  was  the  pre-eminent  man  of  the  century  that  is  hurrying 
to  its  end.  Let  the  ascription  of  the  French  people,  so  signifi 
cant  in  its  allusion  to  the  lower  empire,  stand  as  our  last  trib 
ute —  "He  saved  the  Republic  without  veiling  the  statue  of 
Liberty." 


©ur  puritan  jforbeara 

ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE  NEW  ENGLAND 

SOCIETY  A  T  ITS  EIGHTY-EIGHTH  ANNIVERSAR  Y 

DECEMBER  22,  1893 


Mr.  President,  and  Fellow-men  ^-The  honors  of  this  opportun 
ity,  as  I  well  know,  are  not  my  own,  but  belong  to  my  college 
mother.  That  college,  to  which  you  owe  your  new  President, 
tonight  to  be  inducted ;  to  whom  Hartford  owes  those  two 
great  citizens,  Senator  Hawley  and  that  delightful  speaker 
whom  presently  we  are  to  hear,  and  whose  "journeys  in  the 
world  "  have  never  weaned  him  from  his  Alma  Mater.  [Ap 
plause.] 

We  bear  the  name  and  studiously  expound  the  fame  of  that 
Scottish  Huguenot  than  whom  this  imperial  State  never  claimed 
a  nobler  or  more  potent  son.  Patriot,  jurist,  financier,  orator, 
statesman,  father  of  the  Constitution,  Alexander  Hamilton 
[strong  applause],  clarum  et  venerabile  nomen  —  who  of  this 
company,  in  the  city  where  his  dust  waits  the  last  reveille, 
will  not  gladly  acknowledge  the  legacy  of  that  great  Federalist, 
who  said  :  "  If  they  break  this  Union  they  will  break  my  heart !  " 
To  us  he  is  dear  as  the  counsellor  of  our  beginnings  —  our  gen 
erous  first  almoner,  our  earliest  trustee.  [Applause.] 

I  come  from  a  village  named  for  that  Scotch-Irishman  who 
so  long  governed  this  Commonwealth,  George  Clinton,  and 
from  the  glint  of  the  stream  which  a  little  to  the  north  wit 
nessed  that  bloody  afternoon  of  the  Oriskany  fight,  where  with 
shattered  knee  Herkimer  sat  smoking  his  pipe  and  issuing  or 
ders,  while  the  German  colonists  of  the  valley  blocked  St. 
Leger  and  saved  Stanwix  and  the  Mohawk  and  the  Hudson  and 
New  England  and  the  cause.  [Prolonged  applause.]  We  who 


A   GREAT   ANCESTRY  37 

were  born  in  her  lap  will  not  let  you  forget  your  debt  to  the 
pioneers  of  Oneida  County. 

Right  on  the  earliest  slope  of  our  college  hill  a  stone  be- 
carved  with  totems  notes  the  secant  of  the  "  line  of  property  " 
which  by  Johnson's  treaty  of  1768  set  a  "thus  far  only"  to  the 
East  and  bounded  the  perpetual  West. 

In  the  earlier  days  their  loving  missionary,  and  thereby  strong 
with  the  Oneidas  in  those  good  diplomacies  which  in  their 
critical  value  made  Washington  and  Hamilton  and  Steuben  his 
friends  —  Samuel  Kirkland,  son  of  Connecticut,  came  thither 
again  in  1793  to  be  the  founder  whom  we  venerate,  and  the 
spirit  of  whose  prayer  to  "  the  God  of  Wisdom  "  we  would  ever 
maintain.  There  he  wrought  and  there  he  sleeps. 

Where  gentlemen,  can  we  turn  and  not  find  common  ances 
tors  who  were  strong,  true  and  prophetic?  The  best  of  our 
heritage  is  our  lineage.  Only  supine  ignorance  and  recreant 
neglect  can  alienate  it.  No  anodyne,  but  a  tonic  —  the  story 
of  those  s'turdy,  believing,  irreparable  men  —  should  tutor  our 
courage  while  it  shames  our  vanity.  [Applause.] 

One  has  shrewdly  said:  "When  a  man's  talk  is  mainly  of 
his  ancestors,  you  may  know  that  the  best  of  the  family  is 
underground."  [Laughter.]  That  is  keen,  but  it  is  not  true 
when  retrospect  teaches  humility  and  stirs  emulation.  To 
come  here  to  "garnish  the  sepulchres  of  our  prophets"  may 
be  a  sorry  self-accusation,  or  it  may  be  a  regenerate  pledge  to 
those  immortal  and  ever  ennobling  issues  which  their  fidelities 
defined.  [Applause.]  Let  that  be  true  of  us  each  which  our 
Yankee  Montaigne  said  of  Landor:  "He  has  examined  before 
he  has  expatiated."  If  all  the  tale  has  long  since  been  copy 
righted,  we  may  at  least  make  repetition  original  by  the  accent 
of  a  new  purpose,  by  an  emphasis  that — life,  fortune,  honor  — 
shall  add  to  our  forbears — ourselves.  No  torso  of  rhetoric 
shall  be  such  a  tribute  as  the  whole  resemblance  of  a  manhood 
that  utters  an  intelligent  noblesse  oblige. 

He  was  a  sapient  fellow  who  thought  it  "so  fortunate  that 
all  the  great  cities  had  great  rivers  to  run  by  them:"  but  when 


3o  OUR    PURITAN    FORBEARS 

we  merely  flatter  our  Fathers  for  having  ourselves  as  children 
we  make  the  same  ludicrous  inversion  of  cause  and  effect. 
[Laughter  and  applause.]  They  are  no  discovery  or  inven 
tion  of  ours.  They  are  the  rivers,  and  well  may  we  build  by  them. 

Not  about  any  slender  and  scantling  facts  has  your  society 
gathered  all  these  years,  and  these  facts  are  accessible  and 
heroic.  Levity  ill  becomes  their  gravity.  I  for  one  would  as 
soon  attempt  a  parody  of  the  Dies  Irae  as  to  make  mirth  of 
that  manly  price  which  obtained  the  freedom  into  which  we 
were  born. 

A  certain  sea  captain  wrote  in  his  log:  "The  first  mate  drunk 
all  day."  "But,"  protested  that  officer,  "it  was  but  once  for  a 
year,  and  your  record  implies  that  I  am  a  common  sot."  "Is  it 
true?"  asked  the  captain.  "Then  let  it  stand."  The  mate's  turn 
came  to  write  the  log  and  he  set  down:  "The  captain  has 
been  sober  all  day."  "What  do  you  mean,  sir?"  roared  the 
irate  shipmaster.  "  Is  it  not  true  !"  was  the  reply.  [Laughter.] 

We  can  distort  facts  by  isolating  them.  We  may  caricature 
the  Puritan  by  diverting  to  the  wart  of  his  foibles  that  heed 
which  we  owe  to  his  full-length  virtues.  It  promotes  fun  and 
also  falsehood.  The  way  in  which  some  cross-eyed  critics  of 
these  men,  who  so  largely  wore  their  ears  snipped,  "damn  the 
sins  they  have  no  mind  to,"  the  sins  of  austere  conviction  and 
of  obstinate  righteousness,  reminds  me,  in  a  way,  of  an  authen 
tic  story  of  Pius  IX.  //  Papa  was  a  wit  and  a  smoker.  One 
day  in  his  private  apartments,  offering  cigars  to  a  group  of 
ecclesiastics,  one  declined  with,  "  No,  Your  Holiness,  I  have 
not  that  vice."  While  the  rest  looked  aghast,  the  Pope  with 
twinkling  speed  replied,  "Ah,  my  good  Bishop,  if  it  were  a 
vice  you  would  have  it."  [Laughter.] 

There  is  a  temper  toward  our  progenitors  which,  affecting 
self-complacency,  comes  close  to  the  perilous  edge  of  hypoc 
risy,  for  cant  may  also  wear  silk  and  dine  sumptuously.  Of 
the  Puritan  life,  conquering  and  to  conquer,  that  may  be  said 
which,  of  the  same  cause,  Beza  affirmed  to  the  Queen  of 
Navarre:  "  May  it  please  Your  Majesty  to  remember,  the 


THE  HONOR  OF  REPROACH  39 

Church  of  God  is  an  anvil  that  has  worn  out  many  hammers." 
Our  forefathers !  Where  shall  we  begin  and  where  end  ? 
Seven  generations  back,  and  they  become  sixty-four  fathers, 
(you  can  do  it  upon  your  fingers.)  A  little  further  back,  and 
there  is  no  end  of  them.  Please  God,  there  shall  be  no  end. 
They  are  "after  the  order  of  Melchisedec."  But  who  shall  be 
your  Atlas  to  stand  up  under  this  great  epic  ? 

Alas  !  I  fear  to  be  as  that  Methodist  minister  who  ended  his 
sermon:  "Brethren,  I  have  had  a  great  subject,  but  it  has 
caved  in  on  me."  [Laughter.] 

First,  in  London,  and  about  1564,  the  "Puritans"  received 
the  nickname  that  was  to  become  a  talisman.  But  that  for 
which  the  name  stood,  of  pureness  of  public  law,  of  religious 
ceremonial,  of  private  life,  was  wider  than  any  Tudor  domain. 
It  was  international.  In  the  name  of  the  rights  of  God  and  of 
the  rights  of  man,  it  clamored  with  divers  tongues,  and  in 
many  lands. 

Our  forefathers  !  They  were  Huguenot,  Irish,  Scotch,  Welsh, 
and  withal  they  had  the  sinews  of  the  men  of  Haarlem  and 
Leyden,  of  that  people  who,  in  both  the  data  and  the  details  of 
human  liberty,  were,  in  1600,  a  century  in  the  van;  that  people 
who  educated  for  the  British  throne  the  logical  and  moral  heir 
of  Cromwell,  William  III.,  so  far  as  the  miscellaneous  line  of 
English  royalty  goes,  a  man  with  few  predecessors  and  no 
heirs. 

But  if  our  fathers  —  polyglot  becoming  Pentecost  —  were  all 
these,  they  were  more  —  they  were  themselves.  They  had  de 
scent  and  precedent;  they  had  also  originality.  Some  things 
they  imported,  some  things  were  home-made  here.  But  fully 
and  thankfully  owning  the  composite  metal  which  God  has 
brought  out  of  the  crucible,  let  us  take  that  type  of  the  Puritan 
which  we  know  best. 

Those  English  apostles  of  all  liberty  did  not  go  out  from  the 
Church  as  by  fiat  established.  They  were  thrust  out.  And  yet, 
deprived,  defamed,  proscribed,  they  were  the  stanchest  uphold 
ers  of  the  Crown.  It  took  them  sixty  bitter  years  to  learn  how 


40  OUR    PURITAN    FORBEARS 

brittle  is  a  royal  oath  and  to  put  no  confidence  in  princes. 
What  that  selfish  Queen  would  have  made  them  they  could  not 
endure,  but  with  their  counsel  and  their  courage  they  were  the 
surest  buttresses  of  her  menaced  throne.  John  Stubbs,  printer, 
was  one  of  them.  He  had  written  against  the  calculating  flir 
tation  with  that  saintly  demon,  Philip  III.,  and  for  his  offensive 
plainness  was  condemned  to  lose  his  hand.  He  wrote  a  plea  as 
chivalrous  as  any  that  Sidney  could  have  penned,  that  sentence 
might  be  revoked:  but  Elizabeth  Tudor  never  knew  pity,  and 
he  suffered.  Leaping  up  from  that  mutilation,  John  Stubbs 
waved  above  his  head  the  stump,  spouting  blood,  and  cried, 
"God  Save  the  Queen!  God  save  the  —  "and  so  fainted.  That 
was  Puritanism  then. 

Time  wrought.  From  brave  Peter  Wentworth  in  the  Com 
mons,  in  1572,  down  thro  Eliot  and  Hampden  and  Pym,  the 
voice  sounded  out  and  on  for  higher  law  than  prerogative,  ever 
deeper,  fuller,  more  resolute.  These  men  knew  bonds  and  mu 
tilations  and  the  loss  of  all  things.  They  crowded  Bridewell, 
Newgate  and  the  Fleet.  They  languished  unjudged.  They 
dwelt  upon  intimate  terms  with  death.  They  were  harried  by 
sceptre  and  crosier.  Bancroft  and  Whitgift  lorded  it  over 
God's  heritage,  but  their  victims  were  constant.  That  bad  tri 
umvirate,  Finch,  Strafford  and  Laud,  tormented  them,  but  the 
cause  grew  and  multiplied. 

Came  James  I.,  of  odious  meanness,  of  adroit  duplicity,  of 
unspeakable  profligacy.  Came  Charles  I.,  that  master  of  inde 
cision —  model  of  stubborn  irresolution  —  that  James  Buchanan 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  [Laughter  and  applause.]  Charles, 
called  the  martyr,  supple  in  equivocation,  a  liar  by  wholesale 
and  retail,  with  a  royal  disregard  of  oaths,  and  a  regal  inca 
pacity  for  apprehending  that  the  world  was  moving.  Perfidy, 
sycophancy,  usurpation  went  on;  Star  Chamber  and  Court  of 
High  Commission,  differing  in  name  only  from  Inquisition, 
were  blind  to  the  writing  on  the  walls.  .  And  Cromwell  came, 
the  soul  and  fist  of  political  puritanism,  of  whom  Taine  says: 
"  He  was  a  man  struck  by  the  idea  of  duty."  A  man  after  the 


OLIVER    THE    GREAT  4I 

thing  itself, — real,  curt,  masterful,  direct.  With  wide,  deep 
eyes,  he  saw  those  ideals  for  which  England  was  yet  unripe. 
He  could  not  give  England  what  she  could  not  receive.  He 
passed.  They  spiked  his  terrible  head  at  Tyburn  Bar.  The 
cause  of  the  people  had  no  other  human  Protector.  It  seemed 
lost.  But  it  was  not  lost;  for  the  permanent  results  of  the  Com 
monwealth,  which  Guizot  sums  up  in  these  words  —  "  The  down 
fall  of  absolute  monarchy,  the  assured  preponderance  of  the 
Commons,  and  the  permanence  of  religious  freedom"  —these 
lasted  as  the  tripod  of  English  liberties.  Under  the  compost 
heap  of  the  Restoration  lay  the  sure  seed.  It  was  Cromwell 
who,  under  God,  was  to  find  his  true  successors  in  Cobden, 
Bright  and  Gladstone.  [Applause.]  Shame  to  any  English 
man  who  renounces  the  name  of  that  great  emancipator- 
Oliver,  the  first  and  the  last. 

But  John  the  Baptist  was  gone,  and  the  Herods  were  back. 
The  populace  reverted  to  "the  leeks,  the  garlics  and  the 
cucumbers,"  and  Whitehall  again  reeked  with  gay  orgies.  All 
things  seemed  to  relapse.  Stratagem,  corruption  and  pusillani 
mous  subservience  to  France  rose  to  a  flood  that  not  even  the 
genius  of  Clarendon  could  stem.  The  bishops,  as  the  crea 
tures  of  royalty,  and  sometimes  the  appointees  of  courtesans, 
turned  on  their  stomachs  as  on  a  pivot.  Adulation  revamped 
its  blasphemies.  Then  Charles  II.  went  to  rot  with  his  mem 
ory,  and  the  Duke  of  York  reigned  in  his  stead.  But  at  length 
England,  by  very  nausea,  had  learned  the  impossibility  of  the 
Stuarts,  and  would  have  no  more  of  the  varlet  race.  At  last 
the  Petition  of  Rights  had  come  before  that  court  "where  sits 
a  Judge  no  king  can  corrupt."  Puritanism  had  wrought  well. 
There  had  been  excesses,  vagaries,  absurdities,  partly  post 
hoc,  and  partly  propter  hoc ;  but  I,  for  one,  appeal  from  the 
pen  of  Samuel  Butler  to  the  pen  of  John  Milton,  from  the 
"Book  of  Sports"  to  the  Word  of  God,  and  recall  the  testi 
mony  of  Hume,  himself  a  Tory, — V  It  is  to  the  Puritan  alone 
that  England  owes  the  whole  freedom  of  her  Constitution." 


42  OUR    PURITAN    FORBEARS 

The  cause  of  equal  rights,  the  doctrine  of  "liberty  and  zeal," 
found  its  avatar  in  the  Ironsides.  Up  from  Lincoln  and  Nor 
folk  and  Essex  and  Kent  swarmed  the  men  whose  sires 
Wyckliffe  had  emancipated,  and  who  had  stood  to  their  pikes  in 
the  Low  Country  against  the  myrmidons  of  Alva.  They  were 
not  humorists;  life  had  been  to  them  too  stern  and  strenuous: 
but  they  had  been  schooled  in  the  terse  directness  of  the 
English  Bible,  and  uplifted  by  its  motive,  its  appeal,  its  bound 
less  scope.  They  did  not  lack  imagination  nor  hope.  Easily 
they  adopted  the  figures  and  terms  of  that  "people's  book." 
They,  too,  were  fronting  Philistia  and  Babylon.  They  made 
their  own  the  war-words  of  Joshua  and  Jehoshaphat,  and  the 
exultant  paeans  of  Miriam  and  Deborah.  They  gripped  their 
stout  tools  at  Naseby  and  at  Preston  with  the  challenges, 
"Quit  you,  like  men,"  "Bind  their  kings  with  chains,  and  their 
nobles  with  fetters  of  iron,"  and  between  the  hills  and  the  sea 
they  set  their  high  psalm,  "Arise,  O  God,  and  let  thine 
enemies  be  scattered,"  and  wrenched  the  victory  at  Dunbar. 
[Applause.] 

Well  did  Curtis,  whose  silver  bugle  is  now,  alas !  silenced, 
say  of  them:  "If  they  snuffled  in  prayer,  they  smote  in  the 
fight;  if  they  sang  thro  their  noses,  the  hymn  they  chanted 
was  Liberty." 

May  29,  1660,  the  Parliament  army  was  drawn  up  on  Black- 
heath  to  receive  Charles  II.,  and  then  disbanded.  They  would 
march  no  more!  No  more?  Nay — evermore!  That  spirit 
could  not  be  mustered  out.  They  rally  again.  It  is  to  stand 
fire  on  Lexington  Green;  to  "fire  for  God's  sake"  at  Concord; 
shirt-sleeved  and  bare-headed  to  man  the  stone  walls  of  the 
Boston  Road;  snatching  their  flint-locks  by  the  barrel,  to  win 
that  victory  in  defeat  at  Charlestown !  "I  cannot  understand," 
said  an  Englishman,  "why  you  make  such  a  fuss  over  that 
monument.  Who  won  that  fight?"  "Who  kept  the  hill?" 
answered  the  American.  It  was  the  blood  of  Marston  Moor 
that  sent  the  husband  of  Mollie  Stark  from  Londonderry  to 


THE    IRONSIDES    STILL    MARCH  43 

Bennington,  and  that,  by  the  command  of  that  Connecticut 
Vermonter,  bade  Ticonderoga  surrender  "in  the  name  of  Jeho 
vah  and  the  Continental  Congress."  It  was  that  spirit  which 
yet  makes  all  Connecticut  men  the  children  of  Israel  Putnam. 
It  was  Cromwellian  determination  that  breathed  again  in  Sam 
Adams,  and  Cromwellian  valor,  smiting  home  at  Trenton  and 
Monmouth,  and  enduring  at  Valley  Forge,  that  at  last  took  the 
sword  of  my  Lord  Cornwallis  at  Yorktown. 

Disbanded  ?  Nay  !  "  Fall  in  !  fall  in,  Ironsides  !  "  thundered 
the  guns  of  Robert  Anderson,  and  down  thro  Baltimore  trooped 
the  men  of  Lynn  and  Marblehead.  The  theories  of  Round 
head  and  Cavalier  grappled  once  again  to  make  the  ground  of 
Virginia  classic  forever,  and  holy  as  the  stairs  of  an  altar. 
We  can  all  of  us,  at  this  remove  from  that  second  and  sterner 
clench,  speak  reverently  of  the  nobility  of  Robert  Lee  and 
'Stonewall*  Jackson,  and  blend  their  names  with  our  dearest 
heroes.  What  their  personal  nobility  failed  to  do,  surely  no 
weaker  arm  can  dare  attempt.  Their  swords,  too,  are 
American. 

Wherever  the  New  England  spirit  had  gone,  thence  her 
children's  sons  went  down  to  the  clench  of  Gettysburg  and 
Chickamauga,  to  Hampton  Roads  and  Mobile,  until  century 
replied  to  century,  and  Worcester's  fight  was  sequelled  at 
Appomattox.  [Prolonged  applause.] 

If  the  day  demands,  the  State  of  Nathan  Hale  [applause] 
can  furnish  other  Ossawatomie  Browns  [thunders  of  applause] 
to  lead  the  forlorn  hope  of  those  whose  cries  have  come  into 
the  ears  of  the  God  of  Sabaoth,  and  other  Whittiers  can  set  to 
their  lips  the  terrible  trumps  of  judgment. 

Never  until  duty,  "stern  daughter  of  the  voice  of  God," 
shall  cease  to  speak,  can  the  work  of  the  Ironsides  be  ended. 

We  know  the  story  of  Scrooby  and  Amsterdam  and  Leyden 
and  Delft  Haven,  of  Brewster  and  Carver  and  Standish  and 
Bradford,  of  dear  Pastor  Robinson,  who  testified  of  the  break 
ing  light,  and  said:  "It  is  not  with  us  as  with  men  whom  small 
things  can  discourage."  [Applause.] 


44  OUR    PURITAN   FORBEARS 

We  know  that  boat  (no  bigger)  of  one-hundred-and-eighty 
tons,  of  the  one-himdred-and-one  souls  who  shipped  in  her, 
the  torment  of  the  seas,  the  bleak  December,  the  new  Ararat 
within  the  curved  arm  with  which  Massachusetts  shakes  her 
fist  at  all  the  world,  the  struggle  to  exist,  the  Colony  five  times 
decimated,  the  tedious  and  bare  years.  Yes,  and  we  know 
renegade  Peters  and  his  fabrications.  Knowing  all  about  the 
Quakers  and  Roger  Williams  and  Ann  Hutchinson,  we  now 
claim  them,  too,  as  ours  and  Time's. 

We  recall  the  horrible  delusion  that  found  its  twenty  hap 
less  victims,  and  see  how  those  fathers  fell  below  their  ideals, 
as  what  greatness  does  not  ?  But  we  recall  also  that  Matthew 
Hale  burned  witches  in  England,  and  we  do  not  forget  the  bit 
ter  persecutions  of  Presbyterians  in  Virginia  and  on  this  island 
down  to  1775. 

Withal,  we  see  the  marvelous  power  of  true  Puritanism  to 
learn  to  confess  its  sins,  to  amend  itself,  to  outgrow  errors,  its 
hospitality  to  new  light,  its  genius  for  self-rectification.  This 
great  impulse  has  done  what  it  was  led  hither  that  it  might 
do  —  it  has  outgrown  mediaeval  England.  [Applause.]  Its 
infallibilities  are  not  of  the  past,  but  of  things  hoped  for. 

They  were  men  of  like  passions  with  ourselves.  We  do  not 
worship  them;  but  we  revere  them.  We  do  not  organize  a 
cultus;  we  accept  an  inspiration.  They  loved  their  land  and 
their  language.  The  white  hills  of  Devon  were  in  their  hearts, 
as  they  named  their  Plymouth  after  the  last  they  saw  of  Old 
England;  but  they  "desired  a  better  country."  And  so,  hold 
ing  the  fireside  sacred,  and  calling  their  babes  after  the  heroes 
of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  virtues  of  the  New,  they  wedded 
and  wept  and  warred  and  worshipped,  and  ever  they  wrought, 
"  by  the  armor  of  righteousness,  by  evil  report  and  good  report, 
as  chastened  and  not  killed;  as  sorrowful,  yet  always  rejoicing; 
as  poor,  yet  making  many  rich;  as  having  nothing,  and  yet 
possessing  all  things."  They  "feared  not  the  wrath  of  kings," 
for  the  shout  of  that  other  King  was  among  them;  and  so  of 


OUR    INEVITABLE    DEBT  45 

them  also  it  was  true,  "a  nation  and  a  company  of  nations 
shall  be  of  thee,  and  kings  shall  come  out  of  thy  loins."  With 
sublime  unconsciousness,  they  were  shaping  institutions  of 
which  they  never  dreamed,  but  always  tenaciously  affirming 
the  ideals  which  are  the  base  of  these  institutions,  and  with 
out  which  we  can  neither  understand  nor  maintain  them. 
[Applause.] 

The  best  of  them  were  what  the  best  of  you  would  then 
have  been,  and  the  best  of  you  are  what  the  best  of  them 
would  now  be. 

They  magnified  those  influences  without  which  great  things 
could  no  more  be  fulfilled  than  Dakota  could  ripen  her  wheat 
by  moonlight.  They  trusted  the  chemistry  of  noonday  truth. 
They  revered  and  they  practised  that  law  which  alone,  of  all 
the  codes  of  time,  ordains  for  labor  fifty-two  holidays  in  every 
year,  and  they  proved  that  God  will  bless  the  land  where  every 
week  is  bounded  on  the  west  by  rest  and  prayer.  These  heirs 
of  Latimer,  Knox,  Coligny,  Prince  Maurice  knew  why  they 
had  moved  so  far.  They  had  a  religion  that  bore  transplanting. 
They  nursed  those  "household  virtues  whereon  rests  the 
unconquerable  state,"  and  sung  the  cradle  songs  that  are  the 
true  foundation  of  anthems.  We  cannot  take  out  of  our  bone 
and  fibre  the  stuff  our  forefathers  have  put  there.  If  it  is  so 
much  more  comfortable  to  be  a  Buddhist  in  Boston  than  in 
Bombay,  it  is  Puritanism  that  has  made  it  so:  but  we  cannot 
long  renounce  the  high  obligation  and  retain  the  wide  benefit; 
for  that  which  made  this  a  land  worth  coming  to  will  alone 
keep  it  a  land  worth  staying  in !  [Applause.] 

The  prevailing  forces  of  this,  our  country,  have  been  Saxon 
and  Norse  and  Teutonic,  not  Latin. 

We  are  not  French,  La  gloire  is  not  American  glory,  and 
V amour  is  not  American  love.  We  are  not  Spanish.  We  will 
not  be  Italian.  I  love  the  Italy  of  Dante,  of  Bruno  and 
Savonarola,  of  Galileo  and  Garibaldi;  but  not  the  Italy  of 
those  who  stifled  or  rejected  these.  [Applause.] 


46  OUR    PURITAN    FORBEARS 

Let  our  Washington  still  be  heard:  "Resist  with  care  the 
spirit  of  innovation,  however  specious  the  pretexts.     .     .     . 
Against  the  insidious  wiles  of  foreign  influence  (I  conjure  you 
to   believe   me,   fellow-citizens)   the  jealousy  of  a  free  people 
ought  to  be  constantly  awake."     [Tremendous  cheering.] 

Yes,  great  leader,  we  do  believe;  we  will  remember;  God 
helping  us,  we  will  not  become  the  acolytes  of  a  system  our 
fathers  suffered  so  to  renounce.  The  Potomac  shall  not 
become  an  affluent  of  the  Tiber.  We  need  no  larger  infusion 
of  priestcraft  into  politics.  Let  all  super-serviceable  Satollis, 
and  satellites  whatsoever,  learn  that  the  American  eagle  is  not 
that  kind  of  a  bird  !  We  stand  by  the  old  watchwords  —  a  free 
State,  free  churches,  a  free  press  and  free  schools.  [Pro 
longed  applause.]  One  hundred  years  our  ancestors  wore  the 
nickname,  but  the  thing  they  achieved  shall,  God  grant,  be  the 
empire  of  a  thousand  years. 

When  was  there  ever  a  fitter  time  than  now  to  bring  into 
affairs  the  stern  conscience  of  the  Fathers  ?  Where  a  more 
suitable  place  for  it  than  Manhattan  Island  ?  Think  how  you 
will  need  it  when  you  are  no  longer  compelled  to  swim  your 
Hellespont  to  fondle  New  Jersey  !  And  think,  too,  in  behalf 
of  New  Jersey  !  You  may  build  your  Washington  arches  and 
your  Grant  tombs,  you  may  fill  your  parks  with  eloquent 
bronze;  but  what  a  loftier  tribute  would  it  be  to  these  mem 
ories —  to  the  memory  of  such  as  Hamilton  and  Jay  —  to  make 
the  municipal  rule  of  New  York  City  respectable !  What  men 
are  more  divinely  called  than  those  I  speak  to,  to  forswear  the 
dastardliness  of  indifferentism,  to  see  that  of  all  "dangerous 
classes"  the  sybarites  and  shirks  are  the  worst,  to  remember 
that  tacet  soon  becomes  licet,  that  to  permit  rascals  is  to  pro 
mote  them  and  be  their  quiet  accomplices  ? 

Straining  hopes  look  to  us.  The  peoples  of  Europe — "not 
thrones  and  crowns,  but  men,"  whose  leaders,  staggering  to 
the  brink  of  bankruptcy,  yet  stare  with  fierce,  unforgiving 
eyes  over  ever-widening  lines  of  scientific  iron  —  piteously 
appeal  to  us  to  be  true  to  our  trust ! 


A   MIGHTY   MOTHERHOOD  47 

Talismanic  land  !  As  America  goes,  so  goes  the  world;  but 
as  the  cities  go,  so  goes  America  !  Let  us  not  flinch  from  our 
tasks  if  we  would  be  enrolled  with  our  fathers. 

Emerson  said  of  Boston:  "Her  annals  are  inextricably 
national."  It  is  true  of  all  that  region  of  "  man-bearing  granite." 

New  England,  mother  of  constitutions,  of  States,  of  Sena 
tors,  of  churches,  of  missions,  of  colleges,  of  armies,  of  inven 
tions,  of  ideas,  of  men !  And  I  will  drink  the  pledge  in  that 
element  which  was  to  our  fathers  at  once  a  bridge  and  a  bas 
tion—in  water,  as  clear  as  the  bright  dews  of  baptism,  as  pure 
as  that  which  gurgled  down  the  sands  at  Plymouth.  [Pro 
longed  and  repeated  applause.] 


Duty  of  JEntbusfasm 

AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  AT  THE 
CELEBRATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE  DAY 
WOODSTOCK,  CONN.,  JULY  4,  1894 


Mr.  President,  Sisters  and  Brothers — One  may  well  pray  to  be 
delivered  both  from  his  traducers  and  his  introducers  !  Hav 
ing  already  suffered  many  things  of  many  presidents,  I  am 
once  more  the  victim  of  circumstances.  Presently  you  each 
shall  be  !  I  have  been  delighted,  as  you  have  been,  to  hear 
the  honorable  member  from  the  Worcester  District  sauce  Mas 
sachusetts.  [Laughter.]  No  one  outside  the  bounds  of  Massa 
chusetts  dare  speak  his  mind  so  freely  about  Harvard  Col 
lege.  Perhaps  I  should  begin  the  words  I  have  to  say  with 
apology  for  ever  having  graduated  from  a  college !  And 
should  make  further  apology  for  having  anything  to  do  with 
a  college  faculty.  But  I  do  not  impugn  the  logic  of  my  friend  ; 
for  I  remember  that  there  are  colleges  and  colleges,  that,  as 
"  they  didn't  know  everything  down  in  Judee,"  so  they  do  not 
know  everything  even  in  the  great  colleges  of  New  England, 
tho  they  know  a  little  of  everything.  There  are  colleges  and 
colleges,  there  are  Congressmen  and  Congressmen.  Our  friend 
does  not  want  free  sugar  in  his,  but  some  Congressmen  do.  I 
desire,  this  morning,  to  put  myself  outside  the  range  of  his 
syllogisms,  and  to  say  that  however  humble  may  be  my  rela 
tion  to  college  work  I  will  not  stand  in  the  shoes  of  any  cold 
blooded  expounder  of  what  has  been  so  well  called  'the  dismal 
science,'  because,  first  it  leaves  out  God,  and  second,  it  leaves 
out  man.  [Applause.] 

"  That's  it,"  Mr.  Walker?   Thank  you. 

I  say  Amen  to  some  things,  not  to  everything  that  you  have 


NEW    ENGLAND    PLATOS  49 

stated.  I  am  sound  on  this  question.  There  has  been  some 
little  discussion  because  the  college  with  which  I  am  connect 
ed,  in  Central  New  York,  has  lately  declined  the  formal  lead 
ing  strings  of  the  Presbyterian  Synod  of  New  York,  and  I  told 
some  friends  who  were  questioning  our  ecclesiastical  polity,  if 
no  more,  that  we  were  sufficiently  sound  on  that  matter, 
and  to  prove  it  to  them  I  quoted  a  prayer  that  my  little  boy, 
eight  years  of  age,  made  at  his  mother's  knee,  in  which  he 
said  :  "  O  Lord,  help  me  not  to  branch  off  into  any  other  re 
ligion.  Help  me  always  to  be  a  good  Presbyterian,  and  not  a 
Mormon,  or  anything  like  that  !"  [Laughter.] 

This  is  not  my  first  and  I  hope  it  will  not  be  my  last  chance 
to  detain  the  ears  of  New  Englanders.  It  is  hard  to  hold  on  and 
dangerous  to  let  go  !  There  is  a  certain  independence  in  speak 
ing  to  those  who  are  like  the  farmer  to  whom  Whitter  loaned 
his  copy  of  Plato,  and  who  came  back  saying:  "  I  like  that 
fellow  ;  he  has  some  of  my  idees."  [Laughter.]  The  New 
Englander  takes  his  ideas  always  mixed  with  brains.  The 
multitude  of  those  who  are  gathered  here  today  are  not  to  be 
measured  by  arithmetic,  but  by  ethics,  rather.  New  England 
ers  are  not  to  be  counted,  but  are  to  be  weighed.  They  come  not 
by  the  dozen,  but  by  the  pound.  Before  this  representative  aud 
ience  I  feel  as  if  I  were  speaking  into  a  telephone  that  had  univer 
sal  connections.  I  hope  that  I  shall  be  heard  at  the  other  end 
of  the  line  with  that  emphasis  which  was  illustrated  at  one  of 
the  earliest  telephones,  when  a  farmer  went  into  the  office 
and,  having  had  the  thing  explained  to  him,  was  asked  to  put 
his  ear  to  it.  He  called  up  his  wife.  Just  then  there  came  a 
clap  of  thunder.  He  exclaimed:  "That's  Maria!"  He 
recognized  the  voice.  [Laughter.]  One  of  our  speakers  said 
something  about  the  boycotts  that  were  such  a  trouble,  or 
blessing  not  unmixed,  and  a  friend  of  mine,  who  always  sits 
very  near  to  me,  suggested  that  the  girl-cotts  had  something 
to  do  with  it,  too.  [Laughter.]  I  am  thankful  for  both  the 
boycotts  and  the  girl-cotts  of  that  sort.  I  think  the  women, 


50  THE    DUTY   OF   ENTHUSIASM 

who  make  the  majority  of  this  and  perhaps  every  other  crowd 
in  New  England — and  out  of  it,  too  —  where  brains  are  at  all 
in  demand,  may  well  take  comfort  to  themselves  from  a  senti 
ment  which  was  given  at  a  New  England  dinner  in  New  York, 
where  one,  proposing  an  impromptu  toast  to  the  Pilgrim 
Mothers,  said,  They  endured  all  that  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  en 
dured,  and  they  endured  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  besides  !  [Laugh- 
ter.] 

I  am  glad  we  started  off  today  with  "  Yankee  Doodle."  It 
is  great,  classic  with  something  better  than  classicism.  Every 
New  Englander  ought  to  know  that  story  of  how  the 
first  regiment  went  down  from  these  hills  that  so  ballast  the 
memories  of  an  honorable  race.  They  were  gathered  into  the 
Astor  House  in  New  York,  the  first  New  England  regiment  to 
go  to  the  front.  Broadway  from  curb  to  curb  was  thronged, 
and  as  the  first  glitter  and  flash  of  the  front  file  issued  from  the 
doorway  of  that  historic  inn,  about  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
the  band  struck  up  "Yankee  Doodle,"  of  all  tunes  in  the 
world.  The  people  set  up  such  a  mighty  roar  and  tempest  of 
sympathy  and  determination  as  seemed  to  rock  the  very  gran 
ite  walls.  There  was  no  uncertainty  after  New  England  had 
set  that  tune  of  how  the  city  of  New  York  would  go  !  [Ap 
plause.] 

We  stand  within  the  bounds  of  no  mean  commonwealth, 
rather  of  one  whose  historic  honor  is  so  bright  that  when  one 
reads  her  annals  it  is  to  wonder  what  is  left  to  record  for  the 
fame  of  the  other  stars  of  our  constellation.  It  is  a  record 
legible  and  luminous  all  the  way  from  Buckingham  to  Morris. 
Under  what  better  motto  could  we  gather  than  Connecticut's 
"  Qui transtulit sustinet" !  But  today,  men  and  women  of  a 
score  of  States,  perhaps  of  every  State,  where  that  dear  ban 
ner  answers  the  heavens  with  its  stellar  and  auroral  beauty  — 
today  we  are  each  and  all  Americans!  [Applause.]  Thanks 
to  the  host  who  calls  us  here  !  Joy  to  the  hearts  that  answer 
him  !  Peace,  plenty,  above  all  piety,  unsullied,  unbounded,  un- 


THE   UNAPPORTIONED   STARS  51 

faltering,  to  the  land  we  love  and  call  our  own  !  But  we  are 
all  here  not  only  to  remember  ;  we  are  also  here  to  resolve, 
highly,  humbly,  fervently  and  with  unanimous  consecration. 
No  one  can  attempt  to  voice  your  wills  today  with  a  deeper 
sense  of  inadequacy  than  mine  is  as  I  think  how  many  notable 
and  noble  souls  have  brought  their  best  to  this  illustrious  ren 
dezvous.  How  poor  shall  be  the  largest  that  the  best  can 
bring  to  this  great  love-feast  of  our  loyalty  ! 

Dear  America  !  "  Beautiful  my  country  !  "  "  Nation  and 
company  of  nations  ! "  I  hail  my  privilege  to  lay  my  offering 
among  the  laurels  of  this  day  of  days.  Massachusetts,  the 
mother  of  Adams  ;  New  York,  proud  foster  mother  of  Alex 
ander  Hamilton ;  Illinois,  dear  to  us  forever  for  those  two 
sons  of  Anak  who  smote  home  for  the  cause  of  mankind's 
emancipation  and  enfranchisement — I  have  loved  all  these 
with  a  filial  love  :  but  were  any  or  all  of  them  to  lift  recreant 
and  insane  hands  against  the  District  of  Columbia,  I  am  for 
my  whole  country  !  Thank  God,  undistinguishable,  indissev- 
erable,  all  those  stars  blend  in  one  ever-crescent  light.  How 
shall  Texas  say  "  This  is  mine,"  or  Ohio  say  "  This  is  mine  ?" 
All  are  ours,  and  we  are  for  them  all  !  [Applause.] 

But  we  are  here  for  a  mission.  That  were  but  tawdry  decla 
mation  that  should  deal  in  glittering  vagueness.  A  duty  sum 
mons  us —  a  divine,  a  holy  trust  is  in  our  hands,  at  such  an 
hour,  in  such  a  land,  where  still  portent  and  promise  so  strange 
ly  blend.  It  is  ours  in  the  name  of  the  fathers,  to  recognize 
the  demands  upon  our  total  powers,  and  to  pledge  ourselves 
that  the  hastening  future  of  our  fatherland  shall  be  epical  and 
not  tragic. 

I  am  to  speak  to  you  of  THE  DUTY  OF  ENTHUSIASM.  I  wanted 
a  big  text,  and  there  it  is.  Enthusiasm  is  a  great  word.  A 
true  master,  who  gave  language  new  force  by  his  idiomatic  use 
of  it  —  Isaac  Taylor — once  wrote  a  book  upon  the  "Natural 
History  of  Enthusiasm."  But  his  whole  treatment  of  that 
theme  dealt  with  the  lower  and  oblique  associations  of  the 


52  THE    DUTY    OF   ENTHUSIASM 

word,  and  warned  against  perverse,  unreasoned  and  mistaken 
zeal.  He  noted  the  quixotic  and  fanatical  elements  of  the 
mere  rhapsodist  —  the  dogmatism  and  violence  of  the  self- 
opinionate  —  the  passion  that  lacks  wisdom,  and  the  ecstacy  that 
is  sanguine  without  sense.  It  is  of  the  better  and  truer  signi 
ficance  of  Enthusiasm  that  I  would  speak.  The  word  means  — 
full  of  the  god.  It  shall  stand  with  us  for  inspiration,  for  con 
secration,  for  that  joyful  and  dauntless  purpose  which  never 
rests  in  the  superficiality  of  averages  and  which  hastens  the 
kingdom  of  that  truth  which  it  is  persuaded  of  and  hails  from 
afar.  True  enthusiasm  means  daring  and  uncompromising 
devotion.  It  is  not  a  sentiment  and  an  intoxicant,  but  an  ar 
dent  and  quenchless  hope  that  what  should  be  shall  be  !  This 
is  dedication  —  the  sublime  surrender  of  the  whole  being  to 
the  guidance  of  the  ever-on-going  God.  And  this  is  duty.  Be 
cause  it  is  a  duty  it  is  a  possibility.  It  is  our  privilege  and  our 
right.  I  summon  your  souls  to  see  that  nothing  less  than  such 
a  surrender  to  our  Maker  can  answer  the  voices  of  the  times  and 
fulfill  the  obligations  of  high  manhood  and  womanhood.  [Ap 
plause.] 

It  is  the  conquest  of  the  soul  by  great  and  profound  ideas 
that  makes  great.  This  is  the  stuff  whereof  pioneers  and 
prophets  are  made.  Said  Swedenborg:  "  Such  as  the  love  is, 
such  is  the  wisdom."  Men  see  with  their  hearts,  and  the  heart 
that  counts  no  sacrifice  costly  if  ultimate  truth  may  reign,  is 
the  heart  that  is  'full  of  the  god'.  The  three  great  elements  of 
power  are  these  —  judgment,  imagination,  hope.  He  who 
has  these  is  complete  and  furnished  to  every  good  work.  One 
may  have  either  without  the  others — then  he  is  gibbous  in 
stead  of  spherical.  The  true  leader  and  the  true  follower  — 
each  is  one  who  will  take  great  risks  for  great  reasons. 

"  He  either  fears  his  fate  too  much, 

Or  his  deserts  are  small, 
Who  will  not  put  it  to  the  touch, 
And  win  or  lose  it  all." 


IMPLACABLE  MANHOOD  53 

But  this  non-prudential  eagerness  does  hot  forget  the  crit 
ical,  it  rather  consummates  its  conclusions  in  executive  de 
cisions.  There  is  today  a  cant  of  moderation.  It  is  one  of 
the  affectations  of  conventional  propriety  to  suppress  impulse 
and  to  cry  down  intensity  of  conviction.  This  blase'  theory 
of  behavior,  this  ennui  of  life,  avoids  elemental  seriousness.  It 
never  breathes  deep  enough  to  breathe  hard.  It  skims  the 
mere  rim  of  reality.  It  dwells  in  petty  fads,  and  gushes  over 
them  with  abundant  adjectives.  It  is  superlative  because  it  is 
not  positive,  and  takes  the  whole  English  language  in  vain  to 
ornament  a  whim.  It  lives  in  the  subjunctive  instead  of  the 
indicative  mood.  It  wishes,  but  it  never  wills.  The  simula 
tion  of  enthusiasm  is  its  death.  Shallow  intent  destroys  the 
very  capacity  of  high  thoughts  and  deep  life.  Dawdling  sel 
fishness  is  the  damnation  of  dudes  and  impotents. 

"  For  life  is  not  as  idle  ore, 

But  iron  dug  from  central  gloom, 
And  heated  hot  with  burning  fears, 
And  dipped  in  baths  of  hissing  tears, 

And  battered  with  the  stroke  of  doom, 
To  shape  and  use." 

We  need  to  get  by  heart  Paul's  characterization  of  Epaphro- 
ditus,  who  "for  the  work  of  God  was  nigh  unto  death,  staking 
his  life." 

A  wise  Frenchman  wrote  a  book  under  the  proposition  that 
"Eloquence  is  a  Virtue."  It  is  a  faithful  saying.  When  the 
real  man  arrives  he  speaks  with  tones  that  smite  his  time  of 
stupidity  as  the  thunders  break  the  oppression  of  the  heavy 
summer  day.  John  the  Baptist,  Martin  Luther,  Cromwell, 
Mirabeau,  Sam.  Adams,  O'Connell,  John  Bright,  Garrison, 
Phillips,  Lincoln  —  these  are  the  men  whose  enthusiasm  inter 
rupts  and  crushes  the  stolidity  of  custom  and  the  irresolution 
of  policy.  The  great  orator  is  the  implacable  man.  With 
molten  speech,  with  the  naked  power  of  a  conviction  that 
scorns  half-truths,  a  terror  to  the  bad  and  to  the  timid,  im 
peaching  that  absolute  infidelity  to  the  hour  and  to  the  oppor- 


54  THE   DUTY   OF   ENTHUSIASM 

tunity  which  often  intrenches  itself  in  the  most  consummate 
orthodoxy  in  thesi — not  sinister  and  never  merely  dextrous, 
but  two-handed  and  whole-hearted  the  Voice  leaps  alive  into 
the  midst  of  a  stagnant  and  querulous  time,  challenging  its 
practical  atheisms  with  all  the  sublimity  and  mastery  of  the 
truth  itself.  Such  men  God  sends  as  the  couriers  of  repent 
ance,  and  they  are  the  herald-angels  of  the  Evangel.  They 
disdain  the  paltry  evasions  and  subterfuges  of  expediency,  and 
trembling  themselves  in  the  reality  of  that  kindling  ideal 
which  both  consumes  and  compels  them — taking  fire  like 
meteors  by  the  rapidity  and  friction  of  their  passage  —  they  are 
the  avatars  of  the  message  they  announce !  [Applause.] 

But  to  us  all  God  is  ever  saying  :  "Whom  shall  we  send,  and 
who  will  go  for  us?"  A  deep  voice  sounding  out  the  lonely 
truth  is  like  a  midnight  bell;  it  rings  into  innumerable  ears, 
which  wake  and  listen  and  thank  God  for  another  day.  God 
guide  and  guard  that  prophet  who,  in  the  face  of  vast  reproach, 
is  rousing  the  hypnotized  conscience  of  Manhattan  Island. 
[Applause.]  The  Tammany  Goliath  may  vaunt,  and  the  Re 
publican  Eliab  may  sneer,  but  this  last  David,  not  in  the  Saul's 
armor  of  the  place-holder  and  pelf-distributor,  but  with  the 
smooth  stone  slung  true  shall  slay  his  tens  of  thousands.  The 
one  great  mission  of  the  Hebrew  Prophets  was  to  preach 
righteousness  to  their  times — they  were  in  politics  for  all  they 
were  worth  !  It  is  an  antedeluvian  heresy  that  denies  the 
right  or  neglects  the  duty  of  such  an  enthusiasm  as  knows  how 
to  perceive  the  power  of  contemporary  iniquity  and  to  arraign 
it  with  the  voice  of  a  Micaiah  or  a  Joel.  [Applause.] 

Enthusiasm  is  the  characteristic  alike  of  the  scientist,  the 
historian,  the  poet,  the  true  statesman,  the  apostle,  the  saint. 
Inspiration  is  the  note  and  accent  of  every  life  that  touches  its 
age  with  the  dateless  law  of  duty.  They  who  "prefer  bondage 
with  ease  to  strenuous  liberty"  are  those  who  have  said  of  the 
idols  of  material  success  —  "these  be  thy  gods."  Shall  it  be 
Aaron,  with  the  cultus  of  the  calf — the  worship  of  the  visible 


PATRIOTISM   MORE   THAN   NATIONAL  VANITY  55 

—  or  Moses,  with  "Thou  shalt  have  no  other  God  before  me!H 
There  is  no  slavery  so  blind  as  the  prostitution  of  enthusiasm" 
at  the  altars  of  Mammon  —  where  today  "the  great  man  bow- 
eth  down,  and  the  mean  man  humbleth  himself."  The  last 
question  is,  "Who  shall  reign?"  The  sovereignty  of  God  is 
the  final  truth.  Deep  and  ominous  if  we  heed  it  not,  the  long 
roll  is  already  beating,  and  from  gate  to  gate  the  whisper  will 
swell  to  a  voice  like  the  storm,  "Who  is  on  the  Lord's  side?" 

Americans  are,  of  all  people  on  earth,  most  avid  of  congrat 
ulation  and  averse  from  censure.  But  a  merely  provincial  pa 
triotism  that  worships  either  knowledge,  or  skill,  or  strength, 
or  plenty,  will  no  more  preserve  our  semi-Christian  civilization 
from  becoming  godless  than  these  saved  Babylon!  Americans 
do  not  love  their  Jeremiahs:  but  they  well  may  heed  them. 
We  are  not  in  such  danger  today  from  foreigners  as  we  are 
from  ourselves.  I  for  one,  because  I  am  a  patriot,  will  remem 
ber  that  the  best  part  of  the  word  "fatherland"  is  the  first 
part;  and,  repudiating  that  toast  of  Stephen  Decatur's,  "Our 
Country,  Right  or  Wrong,"  I  will  pray,  "  Our  Father  which  art  in 
Heaven,"  and,  "Our  Country  Right,  and  Never  Otherwise."  Vox 
Dei,  vox  populi"  must  be  the  new  patriotism.  [Applause.]  It  is 
only  the  discipline  of  obedience  to  the  high  God  that  can  ap 
ply  the  power  of  enthusiasm  to  public  life.  Eagerness  of  con 
science  must  be  trained,  by  common  consent,  to  effective  pro 
grams.  We  need  today  a  new  oath  of  allegiance  to  that  God 
whom  on  our  coinage  we  say  we  trust.  We  need  to  publish  a 
new  Declaration  of  Dependence.  Public  opinion  is  not  infal 
lible.  Majorities  are  not  final.  Righteous  minorities  are  the 
real  rulers — not  screaming  themselves  hoarse  with  that  terres 
trial  apotheosis  of  man  in  the  "Aux  armes  les  braves"  of  the 
Marseillaise,  but  chorusing  the  deeper  purpose  and  the  sub- 
limer  enthusiasm  of  "Einfeste  Burg ist  unser  Gott!  "  [Applause.] 

Liberty's  statue  yonder  in  New  York  Harbor  is  but  a  hollow 
idol  unless  it  upholds  the  lamp  which  God  alone  can  kindle 
and  keep  !  Providential  America,  daughter  of  privilege  and 


56  THE    DUTY    OF    ENTHUSIASM 

opportunity,  understand  thyself  by  that  philosophy  of  history 
which  thine  open  Bible  gives  thee,  by  that  enthusiasm,  that 
fullness  of  God,  whose  prayers  become  prophecies  ! 

"  For  here  is  truest  taught  and  easiest  learnt 
What  makes  a  nation  happy  and  keeps  it  so, 
What  ruins  kingdoms  and  lays  cities  flat." 

Upon  the  Saxon  race  lies  the  triune  mission  of  Greek,  Ro 
man  and  Hebrew.  It  stands  triply  for  culture,  for  law,  for 
reverence.  Not  alone  in  these  tongues,  but  in  our  own  dear 
English  let  it  be  written  —  in  the  tongue  of  Wyckliffe  and  Mil 
ton,  and  Tennyson,  and  Whittier,  and  Lanier,  "Tnis  is  THE 
KING"! 

The  Saxon  never  wore  the  yoke  easily  nor  long.  With  the 
power  of  conscience  and  the  enthusiasm  of  truth,  he  has  con 
quered  his  conquerors.  He  may  perish,  but  he  can  only  per 
ish  by  his  own  moral  suicide.  The  Saxon  is  invited  to  the 
headship  of  the  nations.  Fie  rules  as  Caesar  never  dreamed  of 
ruling.  He  holds  the  commanding  influence  in  four  continents, 
and  is  sole  master  of  the  fifth.  He  girdles  the  round  Earth, 
with  nations.  His  righteous  will  may  be  law  for  the  planet. 
He  must  not  swerve  from  God.  Christ  has  raised  up  this  solid 
front  of  a  hundred  million  men.  What  pencil  dipped  in  the 
dawn  can  write  its  possible  glories,  or  dipped  in  the  smoke  of 
Hell  can  limn  its  obloquy  !  The  switch  points  are  set  close 
for  either  line. 

"Today  we  fashion  destiny,  the  web  of  fate  we  spin, 
Today  for  all  hereafter  choose  we  holiness  or  sin  ; 
'E'en  now  from  starry  Gerizim  or  Ebal's  cloudy  crown 
We  call  the  dews  of  blessing  or  the  bolts  of  cursing  down." 

There  is  an  optimism  which  boasts  in  its  own  strength,  and 
there  is  a  pessimism  which  cravenly  invites  the  woes  it  dreads. 
There  is  a  tertium  quid,  the  cross  of  Christ;  above  us  Heaven, 
beneath  us  the  pit,  about  us  God  !  Not  optimism,  not  pessim 
ism,  but  enthusiasm.  There  are  dangers  dire  and  dark,  dema 
gogs  and  monopolists,  poltroons  and  panderers,  with  sophisms 


HOPE    IS    CREATIVE  57 

that  slander  manhood  and  doubts  that  slander  God  :  but  by 
the  arm  of  God  we  can  beat  them  down  ! 

Back  in  1871,  when  men  in  Chicago  were  hanging  themselves 
to  lamp-posts  and  drowning  themselves  in  the  lake,  a  man  put 
an  advertisement  in  one  of  the  papers,  reading:  "Men  of 
Chicago,  take  hope.  Our  fathers  raised  her  from  the  bog, 
and  we  can  raise  her  from  the  ashes  !  "  It  is  that  spirit  that 
raised  that  Phenix  City  by  the  shore  of  Lake  Michigan.  It  is  in 
that  Chicago  spirit,  translated  and  transfigured  by  the  Gospel 
of  Christ,  that  we  need  today,  every  one  of  us,  to  put  whole 
souls  into  all  affairs.  [Applause.]  God  will  give  us  light  if  we 
ask  Him  for  it.  Hope  is  creative,  doubt  is  abortive.  Let  us 
hope,  then  act.  The  men  who  are  willing  to  deny  themselves 
any  possible  gain,  who  forget  that  a  vote  is  a  vow,  who  forget 
that  a  candidate  is  a  man  clad-in-white,  who  forget  the  patriot 
ism  of  paying  taxes,  who  forget  that  law  is  like  a  bicycle  and 
that  the  way  to  keep  it  standing  is  to  keep  it  going,  whose 
very  bones  are  flabby  with  civil  neglect,  whose  minds  are 
mere  kennels  for  vagrant  theories,  and  who  recant  the  old- 
fashioned  law  of  duty  and  "the  faith  that  comes  by  self-con 
trol,"  (and  by  self-sacrifice,  too,)  these  moral  spendthrifts  and 
soul  paupers,  these  are  the  incubi  of  the  times  !  Such  a  man  is 
not  a  man,  but  a  manikin.  [Applause.]  But  upon  the  souls 
who  are  full  of  the  enthusiasm  of  duty  rests  the  unconquerable 
State.  To  these  "the  Christ  that  is  to  be"  flings  wide  His 
effectual  doors.  Ruled  by  such  a  ken  life  can  never  seem 
shabby  nor  hope  irrational.  To  him  who  truly  lives  and  does, 
the  veil  of  the  visible  becomes  more  and  more  diaphanous. 
There  are  such  men.  We  do  not  always  listen  to  hear  the  deep 
breathing  ef  the  people  ready  to  respond  to  the  prophet  of 
conscience.  We  bite  into  one  blasted  ear,  and  forget  the  green 
sabers  of  the  corn  that  array  a  thousand  prairies.  We  find  one 
brackish  pool,  and  forget  the  trickling  of  a  myriad  translucent 
springs.  We  see  one  whirling,  copper  cloud,  and  doubt  the 
Sun.  But  God  reigns  !  God  reigns  ! 


58  THE    DUTY   OF   ENTHUSIASM 

On  some  level  shores  the  tides  rise,  invisibly  percolating  all 
the  sands.  One  instant  it  is  shore,  and  the  next  up  comes  the 
ocean  and  it  is  sea.  The  ebb  is  no  more,  the  flood  tide  is  on. 
Such  is  the  spontaneity  and  instantaneousness  of  many  a  great 
and  invisibly  gradual  movement  under  the  Sovereign  Spirit. 

Thou  who  didst  steer  the  little  "Mayflower"  to  her  desired 
haven,  bring  America  to  port !  Grant  that  upon  this  gathering 
of  the  people  our  dear  flag  may  shine  with  the  light  of  an 
Evangel,  pure  as  the  sweet  influences  of  the  Pleiades  and  firm 
as  the  bands  of  Orion.  Thou  who  dost  guide  Arcturus,  grant 
that  those  stars  may  glow  in  the  coronet  of  Christ.  In  the 
enthusiasm  of  loyalty  to  God,  and  serried  against  the  evils  and 
forebodings  of  the  time,  we  will  march  in  the  footsteps  of  a 
believing  ancestry.  Let  every  flagstaff  and  belfry,  every 
throbbing  dome  and  thundering  cannon,  every  eloquent  orator 
and  voice  of  multitudes,  every  prayer  of  gratitude  and  every 
sob  of  joy,  carry  the  name  that  is  above  every  name,  and  swear 
it  with  a  mighty  oath:  "This  God  is  our  God,  as  He  was  our 
father's  God,  and  He  shall  be  ours  forever  and  forever."  So 
can  we  say,  with  all  high  confidence,  after  the  great  laureate 

now  asleep: 

"  Are  there  thunders  moaning  in  the  distance? 
Are  there  specters  moving  in  the  darkness? 
Trust  the  hand  of  light  will  guide  His  people 
Till  the  thunders  pass,  the  specters  vanish, 
Aud  the  light  is  victor,  and  the  darkness 
Dawns  into  the  jubilee  of  the  ages." 

GOD  SAVE  AMERICA  ! 


future  of  tbe  ffnbepenfcent  College 

AN  ADDRESS  GIVEN  AT  THE  CONVENTION  OF  THE 
ASSOCIATION  OF  THE  COLLEGES  AND  PREPARA 
TORY  SCHOOLS  IN  THE  MIDDLE  STATES  AND 
MARYLAND  AT  THE  JOHNS  HOPKINS 
UNIVERSITY  AT  BALTIMORE 
DECEMBER  /,  1894 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen — The  invitation  given  me  to  speak 
here  was  cheerfully  accepted  because  of  the  introduction  it 
assured  to  those  from  whom  I  am  glad  to  learn.  HAMILTON  takes 
its  place  this  year  as  a  permanent  unit  in  this  Association.  I 
find  myself  the  fortunate  successor  to  the  good-will  last  year 
accorded  to  Professor  Brandt,  of  our  Faculty,  who  at  that 
time  represented  us  by  a  careful  and  critical  paper.  You  may 
hereafter  reckon  upon  us  to  take  all  proper  share  in  the  stim 
ulating  discussions  which  mark  your  annual  sessions. 

The  question  now  before  us  has  already  been  amply  and 
adequately  introduced,  and  with  all  deference  to  the  gentle 
men  who  have  so  surrounded  the  theme,  I  submit  my  remarks, 
quite  aware  that  you  will  "piece  out  my  imperfections  with 
your  thoughts." 

The  subject,  as  furnished  me,  was— "The  Independent  Col 
lege  as  Distinguished  from  the  University."  Not  as  a  doubter 
but  as  a  believer,  not  as  an  outsider  but  as  a  loyal  son  of  such 
a  college,  I  venture  to  offer  these  paragraphs  to  your  larger 
and  elder  experience.  Endeavoring  to  deal  with  whatever  is 
futuritive  so  as  to  find  its  relations  to  present  fact  and  obvious 
tendency,  I  would  avoid  the  role  of  either  Balaam  or  Cassan 
dra,  and  seek,  tho  least,  a  place  among  the  canonical,  if  minor, 
prophets. 


60  THE    INDEPENDENT    COLLEGE 

Until  a  recent  period  (epoch  some  of  you  might  call  it)  the 
story  of  higher  education  in  America  has  been  the  story  of 
the  'Independent  College/  By  'Independent,'  I  shall  mean 
that  which  is  not  in  absolute  dependence  upon  a  particular 
State  or  Church,  which  is  self-governed  and  which  is  main 
tained  by  its  own  corporate  enterprise. 

The  relation  which  any  college  sustains  to  the  Christian 
church  should  be  vital  rather  than  formal,  one  of  reciprocity 
but  not  of  merged  identity.  Its  status  and  responsibility 
should  be  moral  rather  than  ecclesiastical,  and  in  absolute 
freedom  from  the  contingencies  of  denominational  weather. 

Prelatical  or  quasi-prelatical  control  is  non-representative, 
and  sacrifices  philosophical  breadth  and  progress  to  a  special 
regime  of  polity. 

Affinity  and  affiliation  are  far  stronger  and  far  freer  and  less 
inconstant  than  sectarian  responsibility.  They  appeal  to  a 
larger  constituency,  in  a  nobler  way,  and  with  ampler  assur 
ances  of  both  movement  and  stability.  Moral  relation  is  more 
than  legal.  It  is  not  contradictory, —  it  is  other  and  fuller,  and 
it  escapes  both  the  caprice  of  casual  majorities  and  the  shadow 
of  mortmain. 

The  denominational  plea  is  too  exclusive  and  too  procrus- 
tean,  and  in  so  far  as  it  is  efficient  it  is  narrowing.  But  the 
non-sectarian  is  not  therefore  the  secular.  Secularism  is  one 
of  the  most  cramped  of  sects  and  its  shibboleths  are  as 
arbitrary  as  any  that  can  be  imposed.  Unhesitatingly  I  claim 
that  substantive  Christianity  is  both  scientific  and  crescent. 
Only  a  polyglot  and  Babeled  theory  forgets  the  spatial  horizon 
of  that  kingdom  whose  King  of  Truth  offers  the  ultimate  con 
structive  standards  of  mental  and  moral  life.  These  two  are 
at  last  but  one,  and  to  magnify  the  mastery  of  second  causes 
to  the  forgetting  of  origins  and  ends,  is  to  rob  thought  of  its 
profoundest  realm,  and  to  substitute  a  frustrum  for  the  zenith. 

The  non-religious  or  contra-religious  alleged  learning, 
whose  hopes  are  all  horizontal  and  temporal,  is  neither  beauti- 


THE    STERILITY   OF   NESCIENCE  6l 

ful  nor  rational.  It  deals  with  surds.  What  is  genial  (as  Cole 
ridge  said  of  Shakesperean  criticism)  must  be  reverential. 
The  world  needs  spherical  not  bulbous  men.  Its  spiritual 
Philistinism  can  only  be  mastered  by  unshorn  Samsons. 
Ethics  of  convention,  of  terrestrial  expediencies,  reveal  their 
bastardy  in  their  barrenness.  The  crossing  of  intellectual 
avidity  with  an  undevout  nescience  is  both  hybrid  and  sterile, 
and  against  it  the  array  of  schools  that  have  been  maintained 
and  blessed  in  the  faith  and  fear  of  God  must  teach  that  a  true 
biology  leads  on  toward  Him  in  whom  all  that  lives  has  its 
being,  that  astronomy  is  the  royal  herald  of  the  Light  of  the 
World  —  ILxT^o  ran/  <£WTOH/ — ,  that  faith  is  the  eye  of  scholar 
ship,  and  that  practical  and  expert  manhood  consists  in  bring 
ing  the  loftiest  motives  to  the  lowliest  tasks. 

The  latest  word  of  science  (writes  Henry  Drummond)  is 
that  "All  nature  is  on  the  side  of  him  who  tries  to  rise."  To 
that  rising  time  sets  no  limits. 

That  College  has  an  assured  future  which  renounces  all 
inferior  dependence  that  it  may  be  loyal  to  the  Christian  decla 
ration  of  the  rights  and  rule  of  the  Highest.  That  College 
has  an  assured  future  which  in  history  distinguishes  between 
the  dead  who  live  and  the  living  who  are  dead,  and  shows 
those  whose  gristle  is  soon  to  become  bone,  how  modern  mer 
cantilism  taints  the  moral  sense,  and  how  the  idolatry  of  merely 
optical  knowledge  becomes  sciolism. 

Real  education  draws  out  the  deepest  faculties  and  bends 
them  to  their  utmost  functions. 

"We  live  (says  Principal  Fairbairn)  in  the  generation  that 
has  witnessed  the  transit  of  power,  and  this  means  that  for  the 
battle  to  maintain  our  place  and  fulfill  our  function  in  the  his 
tory  of  humanity  we  have  called  out  our  last  reserves !  The 
earliest  moments  in  the  use  of  power  must  always  be  the  most 
critical,  for  they  are  the  formative  moments.  It  is  the  people 
who  now  rule,  and  unless  God  live  in  and  rule  thro  the  people, 
the  end  of  .all  our  struggles,  the  goal  of  all  our  boasted 


62  THE    INDEPENDENT    COLLEGE 

progress  will  be  chaos."  The  true  school  must  scholar  its 
product  to  serve  the  people — the  peoples.  The  school,  be  its 
product  more  or  less  for  quantity,  must  qualify  that  product 
to  advantage  mankind  in  the  undermost  necessities.  Thus 
only  can  the  school  be  saved  from  soulless  dilletanteism  and 
and  minister  to  the  profound  and  restless  exigencies  of  the  age. 

1 i )  What  I  have  so  far  said  opens  my  first  contention,  namely, 
that  manhood  is  the  thing  to  be  sought,  evoked  and  equipped 
under  the  obligations  of  a  celestial  allegiance.     I  do  not  speak 
by  way  of  disparagement;  but  affirming  thus  the  standards  of 
one  "small  College"  whereof  I  know,  I  venture  to  assert  that 
the  three  hundred  smaller  colleges  of  America  are  doing  a 
work  in  instilling  reverent  and  comprehensive  motives  which 
nothing  else  in  America,  on  the  whole,  is  like,  and  that  neither 
the  present  nor  the  future  can  spare  these  labors  nor  their 
vast  results.     Their  part  is  indeed  coordinate  with  that  of  all 
special  schools ;  but  it  is  also  peculiar,  integral  and  indispensable. 

(2)  An  important  and  peculiar  mission  of  the  College,  as 
such,  is  its  exponency  and  guardianship  of  all-around  disci 
pline,  as  discriminated  from  that  special  or  technical   training 
which  the  University,  as  such,  must  make  its  specific  area  and 
prime  end.     This  matures  and  enlarges  men  for  that. 

The  impulse  of  the  representative  College  magnifies  those 
ideals  and  enforces  that  patient  drill  which  are  the  best  of  all 
preparation  for  thoroness  in  particular  pursuits,  be  they  scien 
tific,  literary,  or  professional.  These  widen  the  personal  orbit, 
and  confer  both  balance  and  momentum. 

The  significant  and  enduring  literature  of  New  England  has 
thus  far  come  from  those  who  were  lessoned  and  roused  under 
the  disciplines  of  a  training  strictly  collegiate.  It  remains  to 
be  seen  whether  their  successors  shall  on  the  whole  excel 
them.  The  appliances  and  associations,  the  apparatus  and  the 
teachers  who  are  using  the  old  disciplinary  methods,  are  now 
as  in  the  past  bent  toward  making  pliant  minds  aware  of  their 
whole  and  best  selves,  and  of  their  dutiful  part  toward  what 


A  'LIBERAL  EDUCATION'  STILL  WORTH  WHILE  63 

the  ancients  called  "the  wheel  of  life."  I  presume,  however 
signal  the  pedagogic  station  of  those  who  have  uttered  it,  to 
controvert  the  proposition  that  "  it  is  no  longer  worth  while 
to  uphold  the  idea  of  a  liberal  education." 

The  liberal  arts — that  is,  in  the  old  sense,  those  suitable  for 
a  freeman  —  still  subtend  the  truest  training  of  the  man  not 
servile.  They  temper  and  anneal.  However  useful  or  benign 
the  after  art,  or  exact  the  later  science,  either  fares  better  with 
him  who  has  been  developed  roundly  by  intelligent  interest  in 
many  things.  We  cannot  dispense  with  great  investigators  ; 
but  we  must  have  a  multitude  of  resolute  and  clear-visioned 
citizens  to  encourage  and  to  appreciate  these,  and  so  to  ap 
propriate  and  extend  their  results.  Physician  or  attorney, 
preacher  or  pedagog,  jurist  or  juryman,  the  least  near-sighted 
man  will  go  the  furthest.  Early  discipline  is  the  best  pre 
ventive  of  after  pedantry.  True  education  is  a  geometry  of 
three  dimensions.  Narrow  depth  will  be  found  as  partial  as 
shallow  breadth.  I  plead  for  neither  and  against  both.  We 
want  cubic  men. 

The  discipline  of  a  thoro-going  undergraduate  course  pre 
pares  for  the  wisest  and  heartiest  selection  of  the  lifetime's 
work.  Moreover  it  often  does  this  by  revealing  aptitudes  and 
rousing  ambitions  that  else  would  have  slept  unguessed.  It 
suggests  and  solicits  choice.  This  discovery  and  motive  ser 
vice  is  acting  upon  latent  talent  thro  all  our  land  and  finding 
what,  acting  alone,  the  University  proper  would  never  find. 

I  do  not  lack  manifold  assurances  from  experts  in  techni 
cal  and  professional  schools  that  the  soundest  and  best-grained 
material  they  get  comes  from  the  ranks  of  those  who  have  not 
shunned  the  routines  of  a  stiff  general  course  in  arts.  I  am 
so  far  constrained  to  think  that  the  men  who  specialize  least 
in  College  are  the  men  who  specialize  best  afterward.  Could 
the  Universities  do  their  present  work  and  forego  the  supply 
of  this  Bessemered  man-material  ? 

Rivalry  and  mutual  disparagement  can   never  well  beseem 


64  THE    INDEPENDENT    COLLEGE 

these  complementary  forces.     The   future   can   spare   neither. 
They  give  the  two  foci  of  the  education  which  is  to  be. 

(3)  And,  yet  again,  quite  apart  from  the  vertical  influences 
of  the  college  training,  I  insist  upon  the  lateral   influences  of 
college  association.     It  consorts   men.      It   is    democratic.      Its 
aristocracy  is  of  the  right  sort.     It   reduces    the  tendency   to 
ward  snobbery,  even  of  the  intellectual  kind.      Its  romance  is 
of  essential  value,   fully  realized,   alas  !    by  most  of  us,   only 
when  it  is  irreparably  past,  but   containing  a  vital  poetry  we 
can  never  forget. 

Those  days  of  ideality  and  dreams  !  How  the  shreds  of 
long-silenced  songs  sound  on  in  the  corridors  of  our  hearts ! 
That  microcosmos  —  with  zests,  emulations,  politics,  achieve 
ments,  all  its  own,  swathed  by  an  atmospheric  force  that  rivals 
the  curriculum  as  wings  rival  wheels  !  It  is  an  intense  epitome 
of  the  strenuous  life  to  which  it  is  the  door.  He  who  forgoes 
the  eager,  fervent,  imaginative  spirit  of  such  a  community  of 
zeal  and  effort,  misses  what  he  may  learn  to  regret  but  can 
never  recover.  That  glamouring  light  shines  only  once. 

The  ruthless  haste  into  affairs  or  professions  which  skips  the 
ardors  and  aspirations  of  the  "  collegisse juvat "  is  self-robbery. 
I  dare  implead  those  who  ignore  this  period  of  exceptional 
ideality,  of  generous  sentiment,  of  manly,  even  if  sometimes 
hasty,  impulses,  of  hope,  high  and  hot,  of  developing  will  that 
shall  use  after  skill,  of  lifelong  and  unrivalled  friendships. 

Our  college  students  with  all  their  impetuous  faults  live  a  far 
deeper  life  than  ever  goes  to  print.  This  dormitory  life  with  its 
keen  criticism  of  common  interests,  its  swift  puncture  of  sham, 
its  absolute  appreciation  of  all  that  is  fair,  gallant  and  strong, 
makes  many  men  better  and  makes  few  worse.  American  life, 
could  ill  spare  the  boisterous  energies,  the  thrilling  enthusiasms, 
the  rousement  and  unsophisticated  purpose  of  her  college 
boys.  For  this,  too,  the  College  has  a  future.  It  cannot  be 
come  an  anachronism. 

(4)  Last  I  insist  upon  that  direct  relation  with  its  personal 


A   CLOSER-WOVEN   WEB  65 

knowledge  and  friendly  interest,  which  the  College  favors  and 
stimulates,  and  I  cite  the  words  of  President  Porter,  words 
whose  pertinency  the  recent  interval  of  years  has  not  dimin 
ished,  and  which  are  at  once  an  eulogium  and  a  confession. 
"A  small  college,  (he  wrote)  well  manned  and  thoroly 
administered,  has  many  advantages  over  one  that  is  larger  in 
respect  of  the  intimacy  of  acquaintance  and  intercourse  be 
tween  the  officers  and  pupils,  and  also  in  respect  of  the  vigor 
with  which  a  few  studies  wisely  selected  can  be  thoroly  en 
forced.  The  larger  colleges  have  much  to  fear  from  the  bulk 
and  weight  of  the  mass  of  material  thrown  upon  their  care, 
and  from  the  growing  tendency  to  exalt  the  professorial  to 
the  disadvantage  of  the  tutorial  function." 

Truly;  for  beyond  all  instruction  glows  the  sphere  of  inspir 
ation.  Information  is  much:  but  formation  is  more.  The  con 
tagion  of  thoughtful  and  truth-devoted  lives  is  subtile  and 
swift.  Our  colleges,  with  keen  regard  to  this  result,  must  in 
sist  upon  manning  their  every  department  with  those  who  im 
personate  fineness  and  force  and  the  "faith  that  comes  by 
self-control." 

Such  they  do  seek  and  largely  find;  men  who,  because  they 
themselves  have  enthusiasm,  can  both  rouse  and  guide  it, 
whose  first  specialty,  with  whatever  else,  is  influencing  young 
me?i.  Sincere  intercourse  with  high-minded  and  wide-minded 
teachers  is  the  chief  means  to  the  best  educational  ends. 
Other  things  being  even  nearly  equal  the  College  where  this  is 
most  realized  is  at  the  fore.  This  belongs  characteristically  to 
the  College  domain  as  it  does  not  to  the  University,  just  as  it 
is  the  captains  rather  than  the  colonels  who  know  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  regiments.  The  future  cannot  spare  this  con 
stant  element  of  leverage,  and  more  and  more,  by  every  con 
sideration,  will  the  Colleges  appreciate  and  use  it. 

And  so,  to  approach  the  end,  I  submit  that  the  term  "small 
college"  frequently  puts  a  coarse  arithmetical  appraisal  in 
place  of  one  that  is  dynamic  and  therein  more  just.  In  the  com- 


66  THE   INDEPENDENT   COLLEGE 

parison  of  ratios  between  their  respective  groups  of  effective 
and  influential  graduates,  it  is  not  always  the  little  College 
that  suffers.  Colleges  vary  as  the  square  of  the  ideals  which 
they  impart  and  vivify.  Those  are  large  that  issue  the  largest 
pro  rata  of  large  men,  and  those  are  small  whose  man-product 
is  relatively  lesser  in  mental  and  executive  efficiency.  Those 
who  are  so  ready  to  make  a  patronizing  complaint  that  the 
College  unduly  attempts  the  functions  of  the  University  in 
advanced  specialization  should  logically  be  as  careful  to  see 
that  the  University  should  not  usurp  or  minify  the  indispens 
able  functions  of  the  College. 

Neither  legitimately  includes  the  other.  The  University  has 
no  more  call  to  dictate  the  College  course  than  the  College 
has  call  to  dictate  the  University  course.  The  two  are  of  right 
as  distinct  as  they  should  be  complemental. 

The  edges  where  they  divide  may  and  probably  must  slightly 
overlap,  but  this  is  no  reason  for  friction,  either  by  an  airy 
and  opulent  condescension,  or  by  a  covetous  and  impatient 
ambition.  There  should  be  a  self-respecting  individuality  in 
each  task,  and  in  the  assertion  and  fulfilment  of  that  individ 
uality  the  utmost  mutual  regard  and  cooperation.  Graduate  or 
under-graduate  course,  let  each  affirm,  honor  and  magnify  its 
own  peculiar  and  distinct  occasion  and  sphere,  ever  more  per 
sistently,  symmetrically,  convincingly,  and  let  neither  envy 
and  neither  vaunt. 


lEmma  MUlart> 

AN  ADDRESS  AT  THE  PRESENTATION 

OF  THE  RUSSELL  SAGE  HALL  IN  TROY,  N.  Y. 

MAY  16,  1895 


IT  is  one  of  the  high  privileges  of  a  college  president  to  be 
put  into  relation  with  many  noble  enterprises  and  occasions 
that  lie  somewhat  outside  of  his  own  strict  sphere.  It  is  also 
one  of  the  penalties  of  such  an  office  that  its  incumbent  is 
often  summoned  to  minister  in  matters  that  quite  transcend 
his  own  special  fitness. 

But  willingly  I  have  met  the  cordial  request  of  these  twain 
whose  united  hearts  and  hands  are  responsible  for  this  occa 
sion,  and  most  cheerfully  I  become  the  spokesman  of  an  appre 
ciation  and  gratitude  which  all  now  here  share,  and  would, 
each,  I  am  sure,  desire  to  express  and  to  augment.  Most  cor 
dially  I  bring  to  this  assembly,  and,  first  of  all,  to  these  gen 
erous  benefactors,  the  greetings  of  an  institution  that  has  a 
fraternal  interest  and  zeal  for  whatever  shall  advance  the  cause 
of  true  and  general  education  within  the  bounds  of  a  state 
whose  primacy  in  learning,  in  law,  in  civil  and  domestic  char 
acter,  in  commercial  enterprise  and  influence,  in  noble  popular 
ideals  and  in  all  that  promotes  their  realization,  in  reverent 
and  religious  purpose, —  whose  primacy  in  these  things  that 
make  a  commonwealth  truly  great,  all  the  states  of  this 
august  "family  of  nations"  may  well  honor  without  envy  and 
emulate  without  rivalling.  The  motto  of  this  imperial  New 
York  of  ours, —  with  its  ardent  six  millions  and  its  noble 
schools,  colleges,  churches  and  homes,  its  varied  centres  of 
manufacture  and  trade,  its  splendid  thorofares  of  traffic  and 
travel,  its  strong  and  earnest  homogenity, —  is  a  motto  of  per- 


68  EMMA   WILLARD 

petual  ambition  and  betterment.  EXCELSIOR  is  a  device  that 
was  both  a  purpose  and  a  prophecy.  Vital  labor  is  always  the 
impulse  and  expression  of  hope.  Manly  hope,  which  must  be 
hope  for  all  that  uplifts  and  unites  man,  can  never  tire  nor 
pause  in  its  outreach  and  upgoing.  The  New  York  of  this 
generation  is  but  an  enlarging  link  between  the  New  York 
that  was  and  the  New  York  that  in  God's  providence  is  to  be. 
To  Him,  under  the  word  Excelsior,  we  are  pledged,  in  the  com 
parative  degree,— pledged  always  to  transcend  present  attain 
ment  in  committing  ourselves  to  more,  larger,  better  things. 
We  accept  this  onward  step  as  a  token  of  progress  in  this 
community  and  as  a  type  of  the  duty  to  which  all  our  Empire 
State  is  elected  and  divinely  urged. 

Zeal  for  the  simultaneous  deepening  and  widening  of  educa 
tion  is  the  recognition  of  God's  august  plan  for  a  nation,  and, 
thro  a  nation,  for  all  nations.  The  mind  that  is  at  all  taught 
by  Christ  knows  that  the  genius  of  His  plans  of  universal 
sovereignly  holds  education  to  be  not  the  luxury  of  the  few, 
but  the  right  and  calling  of  the  many.  The  spirit  of  that 
thought  for  humanity  which  Christianity,  when  faithful  to  its 
trust,  is  ever  more  strenuously  expounding,  is  the  spirit  of 
both  intensification  and  of  diffusion.  The  extension  of  knowl 
edge  is  a  Christian  instinct.  The  open  Bible  is  both  itself  a 
mighty  school  and  is  the  inspiration  of  all  schools.  It  at  once 
demands  and  incites  general  advance.  All  gifts  toward  exten 
sion  of  true  thought  are  tributary  toward  the  sweetening  and 
ennobling  of  human  life.  That  wisdom  and  goodness  which 
meet  in  God  are  His  intention  for  men  whom  He  trains  to 
know  and  serve  Him. 

Generosity  is  the  counterproof  of  genuine  grace.  But  gen 
erosity  has  wishes  that  are  not  bounded  by  the  artificial 
demarcations  of  a  semi-civilized  and  half-christianized  exclu- 
siveness.  Help  toward  one  group  only  rises  to  its  true  stature 
when  it  is  offered  as  a  step  toward  the  help  of  all  who  need 
help — to  the  very  least  and  neediest.  Uncommon  schools  are 


SOWER    OF    PRECIOUS   SEED  69 

intended  at  last  to  leaven  and  lift  common  schools,  else  they 
lapse  into  a  selfish  pedantry  which  is  its  own  defeat. 

"That  white  soul  of  my  race  (nobly  said  George  William 
Curtis)  naturally  loves  the  man,  of  whatever  race  or  color, 
who  bravely  fights  and  gloriously  dies  for  equal  rights,  and 
instinctively  loathes  every  man,  who,  saved  by  the  blood  of 
such  heroes,  deems  himself  made  of  choicer  clay."  [1:173] 
We  hail  this  recognition  of  the  impulse  of  our  beloved  state  to 
diffuse  the  blessings  of  which  knowledge  is  the  almoner  and 
guardian. 

And,  met  as  we  now  are,  we  also  read  reverently  another 
paragraph  in  God's  evident  method  of  process.  We  all  hope 
that  this  fine  and  well-adapted  building  will  be  a  means  to 
noble  uses  and  ends,  and  that  the  institution  it  so  advantages 
will  'grow  from  more  to  more':  but  we  are  to  remember  that 
we  are  celebrating  results, —  a  past  as  well  as  a  future  sum 
mons  our  attention.  Here  is  fruitage  as  well  as  blossoming 
and  promise.  All  survival  is  proof  of  fitness.  All  evolution 
is  essentially  ethical  in  its  demonstration  that  God  counts  no 
process  too  complex,  no  graduation  too  slow,  no  cost  too 
great,  no  sacrifice  too  painful,  that  makes  toward  betterment. 
God's  way  leading  up  to  man,  and  God's  leading  of  man  of 
which  history  is  the  record,  is  supremely  expressive  of  his 
will  to  secure  the  eventual  best.  Evolution  is  charged  with 
ideality. 

Therefore,  we  trace  steps,  and  hope  is  educated  into  unfal 
tering  trust  that  He  who  sees  the  end  selects  the  means. 

Therefore,  we  turn  properly  and  heartily  to  consider  her 
name  and  prescient  fidelity  to  whose  original  labors  this  build 
ing  is  at  once  a  tribute  and  a  testimony.  You  will  I  am  sure 
gladly  go  with  me  in  tracing  the  personality  and  services  of 
EMMA  HART  WILLARD. 

She  was  born  in  Worthington  parish,  Connecticut,  upon 
February  the  23rd,  1787,  and  she  died  in  this  city  of  Troy, 
April  1 5th,  1870.  Her  life  thus  compassed  the  long  period  of 


70  EMMA  WILLARD 

four-score  years  and  three.  It  is  suggestive  of  much  to  say 
that  she  was  two  years  old  at  the  date  of  Washington's  first 
inauguration,  and  that  by  five  years  she  survived  the  death  of 
Lincoln.  What  events,  changes,  discoveries,  achievements,  for 
America  and  mankind,  crowd  the  record  of  those  abundant 
years!  Of  good  stock  —  that  virile  stuff  that  has  made  the 
influence  of  her  little  state  so  wide  and  so  enduring, —  she  was 
the  sixteenth  of  an  old-fashioned  family  of  seventeen  children. 
Beginning  upon  seventy-five  cents  a  week,  she  was  a  teacher  at 
the  age  of  sixteen.  Rapidly  advancing  she  became  an  academy 
preceptress  in  Berlin,  Conn.,  in  Westfield,  Mass.,  and,  in  1807, 
in  Middlebury,  Vt.  Hers  was  thus  a  New  England  training, 
well  absorbed  by  a  New  England  character  of  energy  and 
ideality. 

The  little  town  of  Middlebury  was  well-famed  for  its  in 
telligent  society.  Of  the  college  there,  Dr.  Henry  Davis  was 
president.  Men  of  Hamilton  College  who  know  the  story  of 
their  Alma  Mater  recall  with  pride  that  having  in  his  hands  in 
1817  two  calls,  one  to  Hamilton  and  one  to  Yale,  he  deliberately 
preferred  the  former,  and  in  1818  as  the  second  president  of 
Hamilton  succeeded  the  lamented  and  beloved  Azel  Backus, 
entering  upon  a  career  of  fifteen  years  of  arduous  and  noble 
service  —  service  whose  results  are  still  indelible. 

Emma  Hart  was  married  to  Dr.  John  Willard,  of  Middle- 
bury,  in  1809.  The  robbery  and  the  failure  of  the  local  bank 
with  which  he  was  connected,  led  her  to  open  a  school  for 
young  women  in  1814.  Avid  of  books  and  eager  for  all  men 
tal  acquisition  and  skill,  she  was  also  full  of  ideas  that  for  that 
time  were  far  advanced.  The  contrast  of  the  education  then 
afforded  to  girls  with  that  administered  in  the  College  at  her 
doors  led  her  to  introduce  many  new  studies  and  methods. 

Great  changes  have  taken  place  since  that  early  day  in  the 
curriculum  furnished  to  both  young  men  and  maidens;  but 
preeminently  it  was  Emma  Willard  who  asserted  and  demon 
strated  the  capacity  of  young  women  for  higher  studies. 


A  PIONEER  IN  METHODS  71 

Wellesley  and  Wells  and  Vassar  and  Smith  and  Bryn  Mawr 
are  today  working  upon  lines  that  this  pioneer  teacher  project 
ed  and  established.  Mary  Lyon  followed  this  audacious  and 
triumphant  lead.  It  all  seems  right  and  natural  now:  but 
then  it  was  held  as  chimerical.  Now  it  keeps  a  young  man 
well-tasked  to  prove  that  he  is  not  the  mental  inferior  of  his 
sister.  Then  his  vanity  went  all  but  unchallenged. 

Dr.  Willard  was  one  husband  who  took  a  woman  of  rare  in 
tuition  and  force  at  her  true  value  and  was  his  wife's  ardent 
coadjutor. 

Mrs.  Willard,  in  1819,  set  forth  her  "Plan  for  Improving 
Female  Education."  To  some  it  seemed  revolutionary:  but  it 
obtained  the  warm  approval  and  practical  support  of  Governor 
DeWitt  Clinton,  and  under  his  urging  she  came  to  Waterford, 
N.  Y.  Thenceon  she  belonged  to  our  own  state.  By  special 
act,  state  funds  were  granted  in  furtherance  of  her  scheme. 

Under  the  proffer  of  a  more  suitable  building,  she  removed 
to  this  city  of  Troy,  in  1821,  and,  adapting  the  word,  estab 
lished  in  that  year  —  seventy-four  long  years  ago — the  Troy 
Female  Seminary. 

Her  husband  who  had  so  trusted  and  seconded  her  sound  and 
generous  vigor,  died  in  1825.  Her  work  went  on  until  1838, 
when  she  gave  it  over  to  her  son  and  his  wife.  Thirteen  thous 
and  girls,  of  whom  more  than  five  hundred  became  teachers, 
received  and  again  diffused  the  influence  of  Emma  Willard's 
benign  labors.  Mrs.  Nettie  Fowler  McCormick,  whose  wise 
generosity  has  written  itself  upon  a  great  Theological  school 
in  Chicago,  graduated  here  in  1854,  and  she  was  one  of  many. 
The  true  woman  whose  name  we  honor  today  rises  up  at  this  fit 
time,  and  by  her  husband's  loyal  help,  this  building  prolongs 
what  long  ago  was  so  bravely  done. 

Emma  Willard  journeyed,  wrote  and 'wrought  to  the  last. 
"  Rocked  in  the  cradle  of  the  deep  "  was  her  fine  lyric.  So, 
and  still  in  this  city,  she  fell  asleep,  a  well-won  rest,  in  1870. 

Only  the  Omniscient  can  measure  the  fruit  and  the  ever-in 
creasing  harvest  of  so  true  a  woman's  work. 


1*. 


EMMA   WILLARD 


Wisely  has  it  been  placed  upon  the  pedestal  of  the  statue, 
today  unveiled, 

"HER  MOST  ENDURING  MONUMENT 
THE  GRATITUDE  OF  EDUCATED  WOMAN." 

Our  country,  to  use  her  words  of  1861,  "a  continent  in  ex 
tent,  an  island  in  security,"  may  well  recur  to  tasks  and 
triumphs  such  as  hers.  Not  all  pyramids  are  labelled,  but 
here  is  one  that  is. 

I  do  not  detain  your  gentle  patience  with  any  apostrophe  to 
womanhood.  Yonder  noble  bronze  speaks  to  whomsoever  hath 
ears  to  hear. 

I  need  not  plead  for  that  mutual  trust  and  high  cooperation 
which  that  noble  pair  so  well  illustrated.  I  only  say,  would 
that  more  men  appreciated  those  instincts  of  high  service  which 
are  maternal  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  household,  and  whose 
ample  love  embraces  the  needs  of  all  who  suffer  and  aspire. 
Such  wedlock  is  ideal,  and,  so,  real, — "like  perfect  music  unto 
perfect  words."  Well  might  an  old  Massachusetts  epitaph  be 
borrowed  for  Emma  Willard. 

"A  SARAH  TO  HER  HUSBAND, 
A  EUNICE  TO  HER  CHILDREN, 
A  LOIS  TO  HER  GRANDCHILDREN, 
A  LYDIA  TO  GOD'S  MINISTERS, 
A  MARTHA  TO  HER  GUESTS, 
A  DORCAS  TO  THE  POOR,  AND 
AN  ANNA  TO  HER  GOD." 

That  one  does  his  work  well  is  proved  in  that  its  perpetuity 
and  power  can  be  transferred  to  his  successors.  The  proof  of 
active  life  is  its  fecundity  and  transmissiveness.  No  one  has 
wrought  fully  whose  plans  perish  with  his  departure. 

Loudly  does  this  time  of  ours,  at  once  appalling  and  sub 
lime,  summon  all  duty-loving  souls  to  the  strenuous  and  sub 
lime  exactions  of  stewardship. 

We  are  too  sordid  of  love,  we  do  not  enough  give  to  the 
hearts  of  men,  near  and  far.  "  Mammon,  the  least-erected 


ONLY  THE  GENEROUS  ARE  GREAT  73 

spirit  that  fell  from  Heaven "  usurps  the  rights  of  the  heart. 

We  are  too  selfish  with  our  ideas.  Living  is  sharing.  With 
holding  is  losing.  Truth  is  a  trust  and  true  men  its  trustees. 
Our  knowledges  are  not  ours  to  secrete  and  to  hoard,  but  only 
ours  to  impart.  And  our  substance  is  lent  for  use's  sake.  Men 
of  great  means  are  only  mean  men,  unless  they  are  also  men 
of  great  ends.  Acquisition  if  it  becomes  a  lust  dries  up  the  soul 
and  violates  the  first  commandment  with  that  covetousness 
which  is  idolatry.  EMMA  WILLARD  gave.  She  gave  her  heart,  her 
hand,  her  brain,  her  gatherings,  herself.  She  joined  her  name 
with  the  generous,  who  alone  and  therein  are  the  great.  Abil 
ity  in  any  measure  is  responsibility.  She  did  what  she  could. 
Oh,  that  today  we  all  might  be  nourished  and  ennobled  by 
entering  more  fully  into  her  unresting  and  unwasting  spirit ! 

This  is  the  fulfilment  and  the  only  fulfilment  of  the  "law  of 
Christ,"  who  "came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister," 
and  to  give  life  as  the  ransom  of  many. 

I  turn,  with  hearty  thanks  to  God,  who  has  put  it 
into  his  heart,  to  acknowledge  the  exemplary  service  by  which 
this  noble  structure  is  now  dedicated  to  woman  and  to  truth. 
May  God  lengthen  his  days  to  prosper  many  with  this  and  like 
bestowals.  May  he  receive  into  his  own  soul  the  gratitude  of 
those  he  helps.  May  he  be  thrice  rewarded  in  the  blessings 
that  add  no  sorrow. 

This  RUSSELL  SAGE  HALL  will  stand  to  shelter  a  noble 
preparation  for  high  and  helpful  womanhood,  long  after 
we  all  are  gone.  It  will  be  more  and  more  beloved,  as  the 
years  glide  on,  and  rich  associations  gather  about  it.  But  we 
are  sure  that  no  hearts  will  ever  find  a  purer  happiness  within 
its  walls  than  today  is  theirs  who  with  such  affectionate  plan 
ning  have  wrought  this  completion,  and  who  now  with  over 
flowing  pleasure  witness  the  crowning  of  the  work. 

In  your  names,  one  and  all,  dear  friends  assembled,  I  con 
gratulate  these  donors  upon  the  finished  and  beautiful  result 
of  love  and  generosity. 


flbeate 

AN  ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE  GRADUATES  OF 
THE  BARTHOLOMEW  SCHOOL  OF  CINCINNATI,  OHIO 

MAY  30,  1895 

THE  genial  urgency  of  the  invitation  under  which  I  find  my 
self  in  this  present  critical  situation,  was  wholly  inverse  to  the 
value  of  any  service  that  utterance  of  mine  is  adequate  to  ren 
der.  In  this  estimate  I  am  only  too  sure  presently  to  win  your 
substantial  agreement ! 

Not  having  eluded  the  request  of  the  honored  head  of  this 
school,  my  little  wisdom  and  less  wit  is  placed  at  your  mercy. 
It  is  so  easy  to  give  one's  note,  and  alas,  often  so  difficult  to 
meet  its  promise  with  full  payment!  To  one  who  takes  such 
chances  there  is  always  a  temporary  relief  in  that  sagacious 
truism  of  Aristotle's,  "Count  it  among  the  probabilities  that 
many  improbable  things  will  happen,"  and  for  me  there  was 
left  the  possibility  that  a  providential  cyclone,  or  flood,  or 
some  other  personal  or  public  disaster,  might  intervene.  But, 
alas !  Congress  has  adjourned,  and  no  other  general  calamity 
has  befallen. 

Once  again,  having  "  treated  my  resolution,"  I  have  tasted 
the  guile  of  a  honeyed  invitation,  and  I  am  reminded  of  that 
response  to  a  toast  to  Eve's  daughters,  in  which  a  rapturous 
devotee  so  confused  his  Scott  and  Pope  — 

"O  Woman,  in  our  hours  of  ease, 
Uncertain,  coy,  and  hard  to  please: 
But  seen  too  oft,  familiar  with  her  face, 
We  first  endure,  then  pity,  then  —  " 

Let  me  warn  all  maidens  here  not  to  listen  to  addresses 
which  they  intend  to  reject,  and  au  contra,  never  to  say  No  ! 


SERMONIZING    INCORRIGIBLE  75 

with  such  ambiguous  back-glancing  that  a  later  Yes  !  seems 
possible.  For,  out  of  sheer  desperation,  ere  now,  many  a  man 
has  been  "  married  to  get  rid  of  him."  It  is  entirely  true  that 
"any  man  may  marry  any  woman  that  he  pleases — provided 
he  can  find  any  woman  that  he  does  please  !"  It  is  handy  to 
be  well  supplied  with  a  previous  engagement.  As  many  a  cashier, 
so  valuing  his  services  as  to  anticipate  his  employers,  by  rais 
ing  his  own  salary,  has,  to  his  pain,  found  that  reckoning 
comes  with  sure  and  wool-shod  feet,  so  now  my  temerity  and 
insolvency  are  confronted  by  the  relentless  and  accusing  hour. 
In  my  plight,  I  throw  myself  upon  your  clemency.  Like  many 
another  remorseful,  if  not  penitent,  convict,  I  would  win  the 
good  will  of  my  gaolers,  and,  by  decorum,  shorten  my  time  ! 
Being  sentenced,  let  me,  at  least,  be  sententious. 

A  shrewd  applicant  for  a  vacant  Texas  pulpit,  when  ques 
tioned  as  to  the  usual  length  of  his  sermons  replied,  "  Thirty 
minutes,  with  a  leaning  toward  mercy."  If  not  quite  so  tele- 
grammatic,  I  shall,  at  least,  attempt  no  more  than  the  relative 
liberty  of  "night  rates."  I  speak  of  sermons,  and  I  must  frankly 
own  that  since  my  nature  is  well  "  subdued  to  what  it  works 
in "  I  find  my  azure  always  shading  toward  the  pulpit 
ultramarine.  My  garb  of  cogitation  has  long  ago  been  cut 
with  what  an  honored  teacher  of  mine  used  to  call  the  "homi- 
letic  bias."  "And  that  they  knew  full  well  (or  should  have 
known),  who  gave  me  public  leave  to  speak  to  you."  Cole 
ridge  once  said  to  Lamb,  "Did  you  ever  hear  me  preach?" 
and  Lamb  replied,  "  I  never  heard  you  do  anything  else." 

For  theme,  I  had  granted  the  "world  all  before  me  where 
to  chose,"  and,  choosing,  I  have  not  thought  to  compete  with 
those  faithful  instructors  who  have  put  into  the  hands  of  the 
young  women  to  whom  this  occasion  chiefly  belongs  so  many 
well-spun  clues — instructions  which  have  set  the  sturdy  warp 
upon  which  each  one  now  moving  to  her  own  life-loom  must 
henceforth  pack  home  the  woof.  It  will  be  the  fault  of  the 
scholars,  not  of  their  tutors,  if  the  after-work  ravels  or  is  at  all 


76  IDEALS 

woven  in  with  shoddy  yarn.  These  skilled  hands  have  attired 
your  minds  in  serviceable  suits  of  sober  fact.  Your  conscious 
ness  of  obligation  to  their  labors  of  love  will  deepen  as  you 
advance  into  the  years  where  you  will  find  that  it  is  not  the 
gaudiest  wardrobe  that  wears  best. 

I  would  that  I  might  utter  some  not  all-futile  and  ephemeral 
word  for  this  group  of  earnest  debutantes^  and  for  those  who 
love  them  well  and  wish  them  God-speed.  To  be  at  all 
urgent  and  cogent,  to  have  help  or  heartening  in  it,  I  know 
that,  even  tho  it  may  stammer,  what  I  try  to  say  must,  at  least, 
be  serious. 

Youth  may  bubble  with  fun:  but  just  under  the  ebullition, 
however  merry,  there  lies,  in  every  soul  of  noble  capacity,  the 
range  of  intuitive  seriousness  and  sham-hatred. 

Genuine  energy  is  too  self-respecting  for  trifling.  Whole 
some  ardor  is  friendly  with  kind  mirth:  but  behind  all  sane 
humor  resolution  sits. 

Strength  smiles,  where  weakness  grins,  simpers,  or  giggles, 
and  the  palpitating  and  earnest  purpose  that  alike  resents 
platitude  or  sophistication  hates  nobly  that  laughter  which  is 
but  the  "crackling  of  thorns." 

The  true  mind,  untainted  by  commercial  or  social  fictions, 
ungangrened  by  mere  professionalism,  loves  truth  and 
soberness,  and  demands  real  maxims  and  lofty  aims. 

Our  strenuous  time  —  as  commanding  and  as  epical  as  any 
that  ever  was  —  a  time  whose  crucial  analysis  and  sharp  inter 
rogations  prepare  the  way  of  God  for  a  clearer  and  sublimer 
synthesis,  for  a  braver  affirmation  of  truth  and  duty,  than  ever 
yet  dawned  upon  the  tribes  of  men  —  the  great  TO-DAY,  and 
the  to-morrow  that  hastens,  these  summon  and  enjoin  all  man 
hood  and  all  womanhood  to  meet  the  lifting  horizons  with 
reverent  brows  and  purged  eyes. 

Solemn  issues  beckon  and  claim  sincere  souls,  and  such  I 
ask  to  go  with  me  now,  as  in  the  time  alloted  I  speak  of  IDEALS. 

"  All  things  (says  an  old  Hebrew  book)  are  double,  one  over 


THE    INMOST   IS    FIRST  77 

against  another."  Our  world  is  full  of  an  august  and  coherent 
symbolism.  It  is  "a  copy  and  shadow  of  the  heavenly,"  "like 
in  pattern  to  the  true."  It  teems  with  prophecy  and  revela 
tion.  The  "seen  and  temporal"  is  big  with  premonition  of 
the  "unseen  and  eternal."  Every  true  mental  as  every  true 
spiritual  tabernacle  is  "according  to  the  pattern  in  the  mount." 

Men  vary,  according  to  their  interest  in  ideas,  and  according 
to  the  ideas  in  which  they  are  interested. 

An  idea  is  a  thing  seen,  a  mental  image,  an  inward  vision.  It 
is  the  thought  which  all  appearance  quickens.  It  measures 
phenomena  and  thus  surpasses  them.  Action  and  effect  arouse 
the  idea;  but  it  is  explained  only  by  itself.  Plato,  and,  with 
Plato,  all  who  hold  that  mind  is  original  and  creative  —  revealed 
in  organization  and  force,  but  not  secreted  by  these — under 
stand  that  in  the  world  of  being  the  innermost  is  foremost. 
Force  and  form  but  translate  and  incarnate  mind.  The  idea  is 
the  core.  Purpose  precedes  energy  and  begets  it.  Things 
are  the  manifestations  of  thoughts. 

Consciousness  is  aware  directly,  immediately  and  finally,  of 
its  infinite  urilikeness  to  matter.  Each  of  us,  in  himself,  sees 
how  motion  proceeds  forth  and  comes  from  mind,  and,  thus 
aware  of  what  no  sophisms  long  can  tangle,  we  turn  toward 
"the  Father  of  our  spirits,"  "in  whom  we  live,  move  and  are," 
assured  that 

"  Tho  He  is  so  bright  and  we  are  so  dim  ; 
We  are  made  in  His  image  to  witness  Him." 

All  religion  (whether  the  word  religio,  is  from  religare  to 
bind;  or  from  religere,  to  ponder)  is  the  instinct  of  the  rela 
tionship  between  our  invisible  souls  and  the  invisible  God. 
"God  is  spirit,"  and  we  are.  Soul  comes  from  soul  and  harks 
back  to  its  original.  Howsoever  clouded  or  defective,  all 
religions  unite  in  affirming  religion,  whose  ground  and  root  is 
in  man's  intuition  of  soul  and  his  irrepressible  instinct  to  find 
its  rest.  Religion's  purest  Interpreter —  one  and  only  among 
a  thousand — bade  the  wearied  world  learn,  in  Him,  and  of 
Him,  what  that  rest  is. 


78  IDEALS 

Religion,  then,  is  the  grand  tribute,  world  over  and  time  thro, 
to  spirit,  and  declares  that  sense  is  but  its  servitor.  All  poetry, 
which  is  the  language  at  once  of  intuition  and  of  aspiration, 
says  with  that  Greek  whom  Paul  quoted,  "we are  His  offspring." 
Faith  (whose  inimitable  definition  as  "the  proving  of  things 
not  seen,"  begins  the  eleventh  chapter  of  "Hebrews,")  is  the 
"witness  bearer"  of  the  supremacy  in  this  universe  of  the  idea. 
Faith  is  second-sight.  It  sees  the  invisible.  "  By  faith  we 
know  the  world  to  have  been  framed  by  the  word  of  God,  so 
that  what  is  seen  did  not  come  from  phenomena," — that  is, 
the  visible  order  did  not  originate  from  the  various  appearances 
which  it  presents.  The  word  preceded  the  ivorld.  "  Because 
of  Thy  will  they  were." 

So,  at  the  outset,  we  observe  how  deep  the  philosophy  of 
idealism  lodges  in  religion.  Revelation  matches  mankind's 
thirst  for  "the  first  and  the  last  of  the  Living  One."  That  all 
men  "feel  after  God"  is  the  deepest  proof  that  "He  is  not  far 
from  every  one  of  us."  Life  contradicts  those  denials  which 
use  the  very  functions  of  mind  to  reduce  mind  to  a  "strong 
delusion !" 

The  idea  is  the  very  substans — the  underfoundation  of  our 
natures.  Every  act  of  self-expression  is  the  embodiment  of  a 
"thought  and  intent  of  the  heart."  Deed  is  idea  translated, 
and  life  is  the  constant  process  of  turning  one's  self  inside  out! 
Both  for  quality  and  for  quantity,  "as  a  man  thinketh  so  is  he." 
Any  other  theory  of  what  man  is  makes  him  an  automaton  or 
a  puppet,  in  either  case  only  a  mechanical  contrivance.  But 
conscience,  in  blaming  or  in  commending,  affirms  that  man  is 
responsible,  and,  if  responsible,  free.  Our  thoughts,  "accusing 
or  excusing  one  another,"  affirm  that  we  are  moral  and  not 
mechanical.  They  move  in  the  realm  of  a  finite  but  real  option. 
Each  of  us  knows  that !  Self-understanding  faces  itself  as  a 
spirit.  Deep  within  these  bodies  sits  that  mysterious  self,  per 
ceiving,  wishing,  deciding,  and  capable  instantly  to  be  aware 
of  itself  as  a  thinker  and  not  a  thing,  Ideas  are  the  food  and 


MEN    REVEALED    IN    THEIR   AFFINITIES  7g 

raiment  of  souls.  Idealism  is  the  soul's  proper  and  distinctive 
life.  So  we  were  made.  We  are  true  or  false,  just  as  we 
prefer,  and  incarnate  true  or  false  ideas.  Life  is  an  inevitable 
and  persistent  distinction  of  motives  from  among  the  various 
ideas  that  throng  our  souls.  The  heart  is  a  "chamber  of  im 
agery,"  where  we  renounce  this  and  accept  that.  Be  the  idea 
great  and  generous,  just  and  commanding,  the  man  is  these. 
If  the  idea  is  low,  confused,  gross,  the  man  is.  One's  ideal  is 
the  thought  which  he  adopts,  crowns,  and  obeys.  One's  actual 
inmost  ^preference  and  purpose  becomes  himself.  Our  ideals 
are  those  ideas  which,  by  surrender  and  loyalty,  we  wed  and 
cherish.  Our  deeds  are  the  offspring  and  counterparts  of  this 
inner  wedlock.  We  take  raw  stuff  of  impression  and  weave  it 
into  the  fabric  of  personality.  High  ideals  are  thus  the  product 
of  high  thoughts  plus  high  purposes.  So  large-mindedness  is 
necessary  to  large  intention.  Greatness  of  soul  is  given  to  a 
mental  hospitality  at  once  eager  and  modest.  It  sits  alert  and 
gracious  with  open  doors  and  wide  windows.  The  spirit  that 
would  search  the  stars  must  live  in  an  observatory.  To  have 
the  best  we  must  both  compare  and  distinguish,  admitting  all 
comers  and  selecting  the  superior — "being  at  peace  with  many, 
but  having  one  counsellor  of  a  thousand."  The  sons  of  Jesse 
must  all  file  before  Samuel,  that  he  may  deliberately  single  out 
David.  The  genius  for  a  great  ideal  must  be  comprehensive 
to  collect,  and  exclusive  in  selecting. 

Shakespeare  is  the  first  dramatist,  because  he  is  so  inclusive. 
He  drives  an  omnibus,  and  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  get 
in.  From  the  base  and  the  brave  we  may  select  our  affinities. 
The  mirror  reveals  a  thousand  minds,  all  the  way  from  lago  to 
Cordelia.  Each  of  us  chooses  and  approves  according  to  his 
own  liking.  The  capacity  to  discern  ideals  in  instances  is  the 
test  of  mental  power;  the  preference  of  the  genuine  best  is  the 
final  proof  of  spiritual  excellence  The  wise  soul  seeks  goodly 
pearls,  knows  the  priceless  one  when  it  is  seen,  and  sells  all 
else  to  have  that. 


8o  IDEALS 

Candidly,  then,  let  us  recognize  that  knowledge  is  shown  in 
ideas,  and  character  in  ideals.  One  is  taste,  the  other  is  truth. 
This  is  the  difference  between  encyclopedia  and  Bible,  between 
the  science  of  seeing  and  the  art  of  being.  There  are  brains 
that  are  but  curiosity-shops,  stuffed  with  inconsequent  and 
second-hand  odds  and  ends  —  the  pawn-place  of  gems  and 
pewter,  tools  and  toys,  laces  and  jute,  bric-a-brac  and  trash. 
To  be  more  than  pawn-brokers  we  must  order  and  organize 
knowledge,  and  consent  to  do  business  in  a  particular  line.  It 
is  of  no  profit  to  gather  if  one  does  not  classify, —  to  observe  if 
one  does  not  reflect.  A  constructive  character  must  passion 
ately  and  absorbingly  invoke  the  moral  intent  of  things.  It 
must  not  only  see  how  the  concert  of  facts  implies  plan,  it 
must  also  discover  the  summum  bonum  which  that  plan  intro 
duces  and  fulfils.  Geometry  is  ethical.  The  ultimatum  is 
Tightness  —  Tightness  whose  correlative  is  duty.  This  is  "the 
end  of  being  and  ideal  grace."  Sure  that  this  radical,  inevita 
ble  ego  is  more  than  the  material  things  amid  which  it  dwells 
and  upon  which  it  works,  we  are  also  sure  that  motives  and 
ends  are  the  summary  and  goal  of  its  reality.  The  word  ought 
warrants  and  inspires  the  word  ca?i.  Function  expresses  rela 
tion  and,  at  last,  the  cap-sheaf  of  synthesis  is  God.  We  are  His. 
He  is  ours.  Love  is  the  last  word  and  has  no  synonym.  It  is 
the  harvest-home  of  philosophy  and  the  desired  haven  of  the 
soul. 

The  mind's  eye  has  thus  pierced  distances  no  four-foot  re 
flector  can  fathom.  He  whom  we  seek  is  not  at  the  other  end 
of  the  telescope,  but  at  this  end.  God  is  not  the  distant  object 
—  He  is  the  light  by  which  we  search  and  find,  and  the  mind's 
eye  is  His  witness.  The  soul  is  in  His  image,  and  His  image 
is  in  it. 

We,  whose  pain  and  glory  it  is  never  to  rest  until  we  have 
an  idea  deep  and  wide  enough  "for  all  the  argosies  of  object 
and  event,"  have  at  last  struck  the  true  trail  —  "the  trailing 
cloud  of  glory."  The  intuition  of  the  creature  is  the  subjective 


THE   LYRICAL    INSTINCT   PROPHETIC  8l 

recognition  of  the  Creator.  It  is  not  proof,  it  is  the  open  vision. 
THIS  is  IDEALISM. 

This  is  the  insight  that  interprets  and  transcends  eyesight, — 
the  illumination  of  the  inward  eye  that  makes  one  a  seer.  It 
has  been  well  said  that  there  are  three  orders  of  sight, —  "that 
which  sees  things,  that  which  sees  into  things,  that  which  sees 
thro  things."  Observation,  understanding,  appreciation.  What 
eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  nor  hath  entered  into  the 
deductions  of  reason,  God  reveals  by  his  spirit.  "The  spirit  of 
man  is  the  candle  of  the  Lord."  Its  light  is  His.  At  this  open 
organ  the  wondrous  Player  sits.  It  is  built  to  utter  His  music. 
It  is  this  divine-human,  human-divine,  symphony  that  peals 
and  trembles  in  the  Hebrew  Psalms.  God's  hand  swept  the 
harp  of  the  heart,  and  therefore  religion  will  never  outgrow 
those  chords.  Prose  is  finite.  Realism,  with  its  hard  postu 
lates,  not  only  has  no  ear  for  music,  but  it  must  logically  deny 
both  the  right  and  reason  of  song.  The  lyrical  instinct  contra 
dicts  it.  Both  the  misereres  and  the  anthems  of  the  heart 
affirm  the  intuitions  whose  hopes  even  the  protests  of  sorrow 
recognize.  Music  is  a  sublime  and  irrefutable  prophecy.  That 
culminating  I50th  Psalm,  which  summons  to  praise  "every 
thing  that  hath  breath,"  is  the  warrant  of  a  perpetual  and  aug 
menting  hymnody.  Poetry,  which  is  the  twin  of  song,  is  the 
irrepressible  vehicle  of  the  inmost  life.  Idealism  either  com 
pels  worship,  or  its  denial  renounces  it.  Both  are  the  evidence 
of  the  unseen  and  eternal.  Only  in  immortal  souls  are  such 
harmonies. 

In  the  clash  and  clangor  of  definitions,  where  either  rash  or 
timid  rationalists  vie  in  vain  endeavors  to  transfix  with  this 
logical  pin,  or  that,  the  elusive  wings  of  inspiration,  we  must 
not  for  an  instant  forget  that  the  devout  heart  always  knows 
more  than  it  can  utter,  and  that  no  one  expression  can  satisfy 
or  exhaust  it.  It  must  "say  of  itself"  and  not  "what  some 
other  told"  it. 

So  I  plead  for  Ideality  —  for  that  uncommon  sense  which 


82  IDEALS 

seizes  the  symbolism  of  the  material  and  sensuous  —  for  that 
*V#tfg*-i  nation,  which,  breathing  life  into  the  nostrils  of  dust, 
manifests  its  birthright  in  God.  The  commanding  reality  of 
the  idea  sets  forth  the  only  plane  of  spiritual  loyalty. 

To  those  alone,  who  are  "  not  disobedient  to  the  heavenly 
vision,"  creation  gleams  with  correspondence  and  compensa 
tion.  To  such  the  world  is  plastic  and  mobile  under  the  con 
stant  energy  of  God  the  Holy  Ghost.  Everywhere  the  shekinah  ! 

The  idealist  is  no  idler.  That  idealism  is  not  vague  revery 
or  sentimental  rhapsody,  you  are  now  helping  to  prove  by 
your  firm  attention  to  these  efforts  toward  a  high  and  abstract 
thought.  The  meta-physical  is  the  soul's  privilege  and  crown. 

But  consider  and  know  the  tree  of  a  sincere  idealism  by  its 
fruits.  Royal  imagination  has  never  been  atheistic,  and  under 
the  fullest  breath  of  revelation  it  has  spread  its  broadest 
wings.  ^Eschylus  and  Dante,  Milton  and  Tennyson,  Longfel 
low  and  Lowell  are  devout.  No  literature  has  been  so  free 
and  so  great  as  English  literature,  and  none  is  so  saturated 
with  that  idealism  whose  other  name  is  Christianity.  Man's 
loftiest  powers  have  been  instructed  in  affirmation  and  aspir 
ation.  Poetic  (that  is,  creative)  activity  can  not  breathe  the 
carbonic  acid  gas  of  denial.  Faith  flies  where  doubt  creeps. 
All  noble  theory  is  ethical.  But  ethics  resents  the  duress  of 
custom  and  circumstance,  displays  the  extra-physical  environ 
ment  of  moral  law,  responds  to  the  fiery  forbiddings  of  an  un- 
repealed  Sinai,  and  to  the  yet  more  inquisitive  search  of  the 
beatitudes,  and  in  the  immediate  center  of  human  nature  erects 
a  tribunal  which  predicts  an  ultimate,  tho  as  yet  postponed, 
poetic  justice.  The  ancient  reasoning  of  Plutarch,  "concern 
ing  such  as  the  gods  are  slow  to  punish,"  still  is  valid. 

The  terrors  of  the  law  are  interior  realities,  and  their  up- 
shutting  to  sheer  mercy  reveals  the  world  of  spiritual  judg 
ment  in  which  we  already  dwell.  If  we  will  not  heed  the  sad 
ness  of  Solomon,  we  may  listen  to  the  melancholy  of  Wilhelm 
Meister.  If  Judas  can  not  teach  us,  nor  Pilate,  we  can  heed 


ANALOGY   UNIVERSAL  83 

Benedict  Arnold  and  Aaron  Burr.  If  Jezebel  shall  not  warn, 
Lady  Macbeth  shall.  Remorse,  too,  is  ideality. 

Idolatry  is  baneful  because  it  parodies  the  ideal.  The  es 
sence  of  the  "second  commandment"  lies  in  the  danger  that 
"graven  images  "  would  displace  the  mental  image  of  God,  and 
transfer  to  a  dead  device  that  emphasis  which  was  meant  to 
rest  upon  communion  with  the  Holy-  and  Living-One.  That 
not  even  the  incarnation  of  Christ  should  deny  this  perman 
ent  need,  He  said,  "  It  is  expedient  for  you  that  I  go  away. 

Idealism,  unconscious  or  confessed,  is  at  the  base  of  all 
power.  By  it  (as  Stopford  Brooke  says,  in  his  recent  fine 
treatise  upon  the  secret  of  Tennyson,  page  152),  we  are  to  be 
"saved  from  the  impertinent  despotism  which  claims  that  the 
reasoning  intellect  is  higher  than  the  imagination,  and  the 
work  of  Science  more  important  to  man  than  the  work  of  Art." 
To  feel  the  profound  teaching  that  underlies  simple  things  is 
the  proof  of  spiritual  stature.  It  is  the  badge  of  noble 
minds,  that,  where  many  see  but  trifles,  or  see  naught,  they  get 
the  schooling  of  analogies.  That  was  high  praise  which  Charles 
Sumner  gave  Lincoln,  when  he  said  that,  "  To  him,  illustration 
is  equally  important  with  the  argument ;  his  ideas,  like  the 
animals  into  the  ark,  go  in  pairs."  All  true  greatness,  adds  to 
judgment,  imagination  and  hope.  It  thus  interprets  the  ac 
cident  by  the  essence,  and  so  is  persuaded  of  the  possible,  an 
nounces  it,  embraces  it,  while  it  is  yet  afar  off.  This  patient 
prescience,  this  devotion  to  a  truth  and  anticipation  of  its  tri 
umph,  even  while  as  yet  it  is  ignored  or  denied  —  what  is  this 
but  the  faith  whose  instances  make  the  paragraphs  of  the 
eleventh  of  Hebrews  so  resonant  and  so  dramatic  ?  What  were 
Enoch,  Abraham,  Moses,  Job,  Isaiah,  John  the  Baptist,  and 
and  that  greater  Plato,  John,  the  evangelist  and  seer,  if  not 
sublime  idealists,  alive  to  the  absolute,  and  treading  the  upper 
levels,  under  the  light  to  come? 

"  Far  into  distant  worlds  they  pried, 
And  brought  eternal  glories  near." 


84  IDEALS 

True  ideality  is  not  imitative,  but  creative.  Here  runs  the 
line  of  division  between  rhymer  and  poet  —  Pope,  of  Twicken 
ham,  dwelling  in  preposterous  Arcadias,  full  of  pat  conceits 
and  adroit  fancies,  enamored  of  unscrupulous  antitheses  —  be 
tween  such  an  one  and  a  serene  Wordsworth,  an  epoch-voicing 
Tennyson,  or  an  epoch-urging  Whittier.  Mere  fancy  is  but  a 
kind  of  intellectual  photography.  It  fixes  the  instance  but  it 
misses  suggestion.  Creative  genius  works  out  of  the  particu 
lar  to  the  general,  and  its  portraitures  are  illustrious  with  "  a 
light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land."  Contrary  to  the  frequent 
and  dull  notion  that  imagination  is  impractical,  we  may  aver 
that  its  anticipations  of  things  "not  seen  as  yet,"  are  superla 
tively  practical.  Ideals — the  stimulations  of  ultimate  truths  — 
stand  behind  all  high  performance.  Progress  is  led  by  those 
who  see  visions  and  dream  dreams.  The  most  practical  men 
are  they  who,  earlier  than  their  fellows,  perceive  what  can  be 
and  ought  to  be,  and  who  bend  brain  and  hand  to  get  it  done. 
They  are  stout  to  shape  ideas  into  acts.  They  become  the 
heralds  of  the  future,  and  across  the  impassable  they  throw 
themselves  as  a  living  bridge.  Men,  "  to  whom  the  common 
place  is  forever  unintelligible,"  resent  their  message  and  call 
them  visionaries  and  iconoclasts.  Dastards  and  reactionaries 
hate  those  to  whom  life  means  the  pursuit  of  high  objects  : 
but  these,  blowing  away  the  malarial  fogs  of  tradition,  inertia, 
and  the  lassez  faire  of  the  moribund,  lift  the  horizon  of  the 
world.  They  are  av ant  couriers  of  Providence.  They  punctu 
ate  history.  It  is  under  the  contagion  of  such  lives  —  lives 
that  no  coffin  can  hold  —  that  Froude  writes  (Studies  1:35): 
"  The  drama  of  history  is  imperishable,  and  the  lessons  of  it 
will  be  lessons  for  which  we  have  no  words.  The  address  of 
history  is  less  to  the  understanding  than  to  the  higher  emotions. 
We  learn  in  it  to  sympathize  with  what  is  great  and  good  ;  we 
learn  to  hate  what  is  base.  In  the  companionship  of  the  illus 
trious  natures  who  have  shaped  the  fortunes  of  the  world,  we 
escape  from  the  littlenesses  which  cling  to  the  round  of  com- 


THE  SEERS  ARE  THE  DOERS  85 

mon  life,  and  our  minds  are  tuned  to  a  higher  and  nobler  key." 
What  is  this  but  to  say  that  motive  is  more  than  muscle,  and 
and  that  he  who  is  mastered  by  the  highest  motive  is  he  who 
most  stirs  the  pulses  and  guides  the  on-marching  of  man  ? 
The  personality  of  such  efficient  souls  is  not  translatable  — 
its  idiom  is  its  own.  They  do  not  define  their  ideals,  they  live 
them. 

"Consider,"  as  Froude  says  again,  "what  the  Odyssey  would 
be  reduced  to  an  analysis."  It  is  to  be  felt,  not  formulated. 
Tennyson  felt  the  breezes  that  fanned  the  Mediterranean  of 
Homer  when  he  wrote  — 

"  My  purpose  holds 

To  sail  beyond  the  sunset  and  the  haths 
Of  all  the  Western  stars.     It  may  be  that  the  gulfs 
Shall  wash  us  down  ;  it  may  be  we  shall  touch 
The  happy  isles." 

Yes  !  Consider  how  deeply  the  power  of  the  unseen  wrought 
in  Columbus  before  he  placed  upon  the  map  the  continent 
that  was  in  his  heart !  Think  what  part  an  irrepressible  in 
stinct  played,  when  the  daring  voyagers  of  Elizabeth's  reign 
"wooed  all  the  oceans  with  their  sturdy  keels."  Angelo  con 
ceived  "  the  Pantheon  hung  in  mid-air,"  and  then  lifted  the 
dome  of  St.  Peter's.  Leverrier  thought  out  Neptune,  then 
predicted,  then  saw  it.  Roget  de  Lisle  was  the  Marseillaise 
hymn,  and  then  sung  it,  hoarse  with  the  shouts  of  nations, 
thunder-rhythmed  with  tread  of  a  million  feet  trampling  the 
gilded  woodwork  of  rotten  thrones.  "  Ein  feste  Burg"  was 
the  echo  of  Luther's  confidence  in  Him  who  fills  all  the  moun 
tains  with  His  chariots.  Cromwell's  spirit  had  already  fought 
thro  the  battle  when  his  Ironsides  "rode  down  among  the  blue 
bonnets  at  Dunbar,"  and  amid  the  fogs  of  the  border  pitched 
that  68th  Psalm  in  an  immortal  key  —  "  Arise,  O  God,  and  let 
Thine  enemies  be  scattered."  The  men  and  women  of  the  May 
flower  brought  New  England  with  them  in  their  shallop.  Sam 
Adams  loved  liberty,  wedded  her,  and  so  inspired  the  struggle 


86  IDEALS 

of  the  men  who  "  fired  for  God's  sake  "  at  Concord,  and  at  last 
received  the  sword  of  my  lord  Cornwallis,  at  Yorktown.  Ham 
ilton  saw  "the  noble  perspective  of  a  great  federal  republic," 
and  being  dead  yet  speaketh.  Abraham  "  believed  God,"  and 
became  the  patriarch  of  three  religions.  Wycliffe  dreamed  of 
an  open  Bible,  and  made  it  true.  "The  Pilgrim's  Progress" 
was  Bunyan's  autobiography.  Lincoln  travailed  in  pain  with 
his  decree  of  emancipation,  and  then  it  was  born.  Bismarck 
and  Cavour  listened  to  the  inner  voice,  and  Germany  and 
Italy  sprang  to  their  feet,  each  a  united  people.  John  Brown 
struck  his  blow  in  the  dark,  and  all  the  morning  stars  of  Liberty 
answered  him  ! 

The  calculus,  the  steam  engine,  type,  the  telephone  —  all  dis 
covery,  is  out  of  the  idea.  Invention  is  first  a  mental  combin 
ation  —  the  thought  moulding  the  thing.  It  is  not  better  tools, 
but  deeper  wits,  that  explains  an  Edison.  What  is  inspiration 
but  the  idea  of  God  imparted  to  upward-open  minds.  When, 
at  Pentecost,  the  power  of  Christ  dawned  upon  those  plain 
disciples,  they  went  forth  to  "shake  all  the  mighty  world." 
The  sublime  interpretations  of  the  Gospel  are  the  supreme 
demonstration  of  the  soul-sight  whereof  we  speak.  Under  this 
august  sky  man  best  knows  the  mysterious  inwardness  of  be 
ing. 

It  was  when  Saul  of  Tarsus  saw  what  a  lifetime  of  obedience 
might  be,  that  all  his  old  conceptions  shrank  to  nothingness. 
All  else  was  loss  —  submitting  to  the  splendors  of  Christ,  he 
became  the  conqueror  of  three  civilizations.  Momentous 
resolution  !  Idealism  conditions  apostleship.  For  an  ideal, 
to  be  truly  our  own,  must  own  us.  It  conquers  us  into  its 
grandeurs  only  upon  terms  of  unconditional  surrender.  High 
thoughts  can  not  long  live  in  low  men.  To  say, after  Ovid, "meliora 
proboque,  deteriora  sequor, "  is  at  once  an  elegy  and  a  judicial 
sentence. 

Oh,  might  some  poor  word  of  mine  touch  to  the  quick  the 
womanhood  of  you  who  now  are  advancing  toward  the  larger 


THE    SHAME    OF    MEDIOCRITY  87 

probations  of  maturity  !  You  will  differ,  my  sisters,  in  the 
efficacy  of  your  lives,  by  just  so  much  as  you  differ  in  fidelity 
to  spirit,  as  superior  to  sight  and  sense.  It  is  motive  that  dif 
ferentiates  the  doer  from  the  drone,  the  sybarite  from  the 
saint.  You  stand  here  now  as  if  with  "sealed  proposals."  Are 
they  noble  ?  are  they  sordid  ?  Time  must  tell.  Adopt  an 
ambition  high  enough  for  eternal  character  and  under  it, 
add  yourselves  to  that  phalanx  of  the  eager  souled,  who,  with 
a  thousand  varities  of  task,  have  realized  their  ideals  under 
that  high  pledge  —  "ONE  THING  i  DO." 

Not  by  exuberant  declamation  shall  you  win  to  the  "  prize 
of  the  high  calling,"  not  by  theatrical  sentimentalities:  but 
by  thoughts  knit  to  performance,  by  the  energy  which  makes 
its  own  right  of  way,  by  the  definitive  renunciation  of  that  list 
less,  purposeless  existence,  which  is  "as  idle  as  a  painted  ship 
upon  a  painted  ocean,"  by  making  duty  the  star  of  all  your 
steering,  by  absolute  allegiance  to  the  "  Father  of  lights." 

Life  lies  there.  Will  intends  work.  He  who  would  warm 
and  brighten  the  world  must  consume  himself.  Cheap  souls 
delude  themselves  with  fine  talk,  but  a  genuine  ideal  is  expen 
sive.  It  hates  mediocrity.  That  is  a  keen  German  apothegm, 
"the  good  is  enemy  to  the  best;"  for  the  merely  "passable," 
the  "  pretty  good,"  the  half-baked,  "  seconds,"  putty  and  rub 
ble,  demoralize,  yes,  any  one  of  these  debauches  him  who  offers 
it,  and  justice  wreaks  the  vengeance  of  a  bar-sinister  upon  him 
who  shirks  sacrifice. 

Phariseeism  and  Sadduceeism,  in  art  and  labor,  as  in  religion, 
alike  centering  upon  self  only,  forfeit  and  frustrate  that  Love, 
whose  immortal  definition  is  that  it  "  seeketh  not  its  own." 
The  centripetal  motive  destines  itself  to  perpetual  shrinkage, 
to  futility,  to  an  eternal  anti-climax ! 

I  delay  you  with  no  picture  of  the  un-ideal  life.  Place, 
pleasure,  pelf,  power,  what  are  these  as  e?idsf  and  what  are  all 
objects  that  end  in  these,  but  the  soul's  prostitution ! 

It  was  a  remark,  that  seems  finer  still  because  Philip  Sidney 


88  IDEALS 

uttered  it,  that  "eagles  fly  alone."  Rarity  of  altitude  —  the 
bird's-eye  view  —  means  separateness.  The  penalty  of  spiritual 
rank  is  apt  to  be  a  measure  of  isolation.  But  the  society  of 
absorbingly  high  ideals  can  never  be  solitude.  There  was  one 
who,  in  a  loneliness  of  misrepresentation  that  no  experiences 
of  ours  can  ever  make  intelligible,  declared,  "  Yet  I  am  not  alone." 

Antagonisms  there  must  be,  and  they  are  neither  to  be 
evaded  nor  feared.  It  is  the  divine  testimony,  not  the  garn 
ished  sepulcher  that  makes  the  prophet  great.  "They  may 
kill  me  if  they  can  catch  me,"  said  Socrates.  But  is  Socrates 
dead  ?  Are  any  dead  of  the  "choir  invisible" — the  omnipo 
tent  minority  —  who  have  set  the  share  of  truth  in  the  fallow 
generations  and  plowed  their  several  furrows  to  the  wall ! 

The  very  elements  fight  for  the  free  spirit  that  does  not  (in 
the  words  of  Ruskin),  "lower  the  level  of  its  aim  to  enjoy  the 
complacency  of  success."  Wider  than  the  waters  could  carry 
the  ashes  of  John  Wycliffe,  strewn  by  impotent  malice,  they 
have  carried  that  open  book  which  tyrants  hate  !  They  might 
impale  at  Tyburn  bar  that  head,  terrible  to  all  Stuarts  and 
their  ilk,  but  the  fingers  of  the  Protector  work  yet  in  the 
commonwealth  of  the  world. 

Thoughts  are  bessemered  into  principles  only  in  the  cruci 
ble,  and  shaped  to  use  under  the  steam-hammer.  "Talent 
(wrote  Goethe)  is  developed  in  solitude;  character  in  the 
stream  of  life."  Constancy  comes  at  last  to  its  coronation. 

When  Henry  Smart,  one  of  the  sincerest  of  modern  English 
church  composers,  lay  a-dying,  he  thought  he  saw  the  master 
of  his  life-work,  and  half  rising,  with  gleaming  face,  he  cried, 
"Hi  !  John  Sebastian  Bach  !"  But  to  each  of  us  who  wills,  it 
may  be  given  at  last  to  recognize  Him  "whose  name  is  above 
every  name"  —  whom  Stephen  saw  and  fell  asleep. 

To  pull  the  world  up  the  steep  grade  of  Time  we  must  send 
more  steam  to  the  cylinder  than  to  the  whistle.  Vital  enthu 
siasms  make  all  terrestrial  rewards  shabby  —  they  turn  fins 
into  feet  and  arms  into  wings.  In  the  entertaining  miscellany 


AN   AGE   OF   EPICAL   DEMAND  89 

of  the  older  D'Israeli,  upon  the  "Literary  Character"  (2:20), 
it  is  written  of  the  mineralogist  Werner:  "  His  unwritten  lec 
ture  was  a  reverie,  till,  kindling  in  his  progress,  blending 
science  and  imagination  in  the  grandeur  of  his  conceptions,  at 
times,  as  if  he  had  gathered  about  him  the  very  elements  of 
nature,  his  spirit  seemed  to  be  hovering  over  the  waters  and  the 
strata''  Such  an  interpreter  holds  the  master-key  to  all  locks. 

"The  lesson  of  life,"  says  Emerson,  (Rep.  Men.,  pp.  182, 
183),  "is,  practically,  to  generalize  —  to  believe  what  the  years 
and  the  centuries  say  against  the  hours  —  to  resist  the  usurpa 
tion  of  particulars,  and  to  penetrate  to  their  catholic  sense." 
"This  faith  avails  to  the  whole  emergency  of  life  and  objects. 
The  world  is  saturated  with  Deity  and  with  law.  A  man  of 
thought  must  feel  that  thought  is  the  parent  of  the  Universe." 

This  topmost  plane  of  philosophical  idealism  is,  however, 
but  the  lowest  stair  of  that  spiritual  confidence  whose  courage 
it  is  that  "All  things  work  together  for  good  to  them  that 
love  God." 

If,  now,  at  last,  some  of  you  are  thinking  that  this  paper  has 
been  too  much  a  homily,  and  too  little  a  literary  excursion,  let 
me  ask  you,  What  is  literature?  What  but  the  record  of  ideas 
and  of  man's  life  therein  ?  What  does  college  or  school  stand 
for,  if  not  for  the  society  of  ideals  and  the  discipline  of  their 
inculcation.  What  is  education  but  the  eduction  of  the  inner 
nature  ?  What  are  facts  worth  without  this  factoring  ?  Your 
library  is  the  memorial  of  personalities  striving  to  interpret 
life,  and  thro  its  materials  to  discover  its  meaning.  A  library 
is  an  arsenal  for  those  who  fight  under  the  colors  that  never 
shall  be  struck.  The  vitalest  books  are  those  in  which  blazing 
and  unconsumable  souls  allure  us  to  try  the  way  they  trod. 
The  books  we  heed  are  the  books  that  bleed.  The  sufferers 
are  the  sages.  Their  works  do  follow  them.  They  are  of  no 
date,  and  carry  the  imprimatur  of  God.  A  library  is  no  mauso 
leum,  but  the  populous  abode  of  the  mighty  who  cannot  die. 

And  so,  to  strike  the  cadence  of  this  monody,  let  Deborah's 


go  IDEALS 

challenge  ring  yet,  "Up  !  for  this  is  the  day  !  Is  not  the  Lord 
gone  out  before  you  ?"  Heed  Lowell's  praise  of  Chaucer,  that 
"he  was  the  first  poet  who  wrote  as  if  today  were  as  good  as 
yesterday."  The  evangel  is  not  exhausted.  Time  advertises 
for  those  whose  far-sight  refuses  to  believe  that  the  world  is 
used  up.  There  are  to  be  new  Iliads. 

The  age  needs  sane  and  serious  souls  —  men  who  are  not 
tailors'  models,  nnd  women  who  are  not  dolls.  It  calls  from 
the  lyric  to  the  epic.  It  bids  the  brave  to  resent  the  incoherent 
ethics  of  that  so-called  realism  which  flaunts  its  hour,  to  refuse 
the  whining  and  suicidal  postulates  that  self  and  sense  are  final, 
and  to  proclaim  that  materialism  in  morals  is  the  degradation 
of  conscience  from  a  queen  to  a  scullion,  and  that  in  affairs 
Hedonism  is  cousin  to  anarchy ! 

The  divine  appeal  is  to  us  all,  to  own  the  trusteeship  of 
truth,  as  well  as  of  possessions,  and  that  with  a  severe  noblesse 
oblige  all  better  having  imposes  a  larger  debt  of  sharing. 

The  hours  which  run,  summon,  with  a  bugle's  call,  men,  and 
maidens  to  match  them,  who  shall  put  aside  the  paltry  for  the 
pure.  Patriotism  and  faith  alike  lie  here.  Here  are  the 
domestic  virtues,  "whereon  rests  the  unconquerable  state." 
Here  waits  the  chivalry  of  Christ.  These  are  the  "daughters 
that  prophesy."  This  is  the  womanhood  that  wears  the 
imperial  crown. 

"  Then  reign  the  world's  great  bridals,  calm  and  chaste, 
Thence  springs  the  crowning  race  of  human  kind." 

Ye  "blessed  damozels,"  such,  and  such  only  can  command 
the  century  which  must  be  either  epical  or  tragic.     God  grant 
you,   therefore,   to   be   idealists — and  more  than  you  ask  or 
think  to  have  your  dreams  come  true.  For  the  humble  bravery, 
which  trusts  the  powers  of  an  endless  life,  which  surmounts 
itself  in  the  love  that  "  beareth  all  things,  hopeth  all  things, 
endureth  all  things,  believeth  all  things,"  is  at  one  with 
"That  God,  which  ever  lives  and  loves. 
One  God,  one  law,  one  element, 
And  one  far-off,  divine  event 
To  which  the  whole  creation  moves." 


ON  THE   THRESHOLD  gi 

He  shall  bruise  Satan  under  our  feet,  and  by  and  by  we  shall 
be  ready  to  say  with  brave  Walter  Scott  (great  for  his  genius, 
but  greater  yet  for  his  indomitable  honor),  that  which  he  so 
simply  penned  as  his  mortal  chapter  drew  to  its  ending,  "I 
think  that  next  week  I  shall  be  in  the  secret." 


Stewarfcsbtp  of  Iknowlebge 


AN  ADDRESS  AT  THE  OPENING  OF 

THE  BROOKLYN  INSTITUTE 

SEPTEMBER  30,  1895 

Mr.  President,  Members  of  the  Brooklyn  Institute,  and  all  Good 
Friends  —  The  invitation  under  which  I  am  to  speak  to  you, 
while  it  confers  a  great  honor,  also  imposes  a  severe  respon 
sibility.  The  best  reasoned  conclusions,  the  most  compelling 
sympathy,  could  not  be  too  much  for  this  earnest  assembly 
and  alert  hour.  I  cannot  hope  to  disguise  the  limitations, 
which,  as  I  begin,  are  so  uncomfortably  real  to  me.  I  can  only 
ask  of  your  'associated  censorship,'  Portia's  quality  of  mercy. 

Only  in  wakening  your  self-realization,  and  in  touching, 
however  poorly,  your  enthusiasms  for  what  this  Institute  is 
and  purposes,  shall  I  at  all  avoid  the  penalty  of  that  temerity 
of  mine  which  is  just  now  our  common  misfortune. 

So  far,  then,  my  unfeigned  condolence:  but  for  all  else  my 
admiring  congratulations,  tempered  only  by  that  note  of  sor 
row  which  you  all  must  sound  as  you  miss  the  hoped-for 
presence  of  one  whom  you  have  so  long  loved  and  trusted  as  a 
leader  in  the  best  life  of  this  community.  This  city  is  at  once 
the  richer  and  the  poorer  because  the  Rev.  Dr.  Charles  H. 
Hall  is  tonight  the  guest  of  God  ! 

It  is  a  privilege  to  which  I  am  deeply  sensitive  that  I  have 
been  introduced  to  you  by  one  whose  station  as  the  Nestor  of 
all  learned  and  Christian  utterance  in  this  good  town,  there 
are  none  to  dispute  and  myriads  to  recognize.  Long  may  Dr. 
Storrs,  as  your  most  representative  citizen,  receive  your  ready 
acclaim. 


AN  AUTONOMOUS    CITY  93 

I  spoke  of  self-realization.  By  that  I  mean  the  realization  of 
what  this  Institute  is  and  is  able  to  become. 

An  unconscious  sagacity  ruled  the  efforts  of  Augustus 
Graham  in  1823  and  thenceon.  He  builded  (as  do  all  true 
architects)  better  than  he  knew.  Your  augmenting  constit 
uency,  now  four-thousand,  with  its  still  wider  influence  and 
stimulation,  is  the  present  fruitage  of  what  he  planted  in  hope. 
The  capitoline  edifice  that  is  to  adorn  your  park  will  be  his 
outward  monument :  but  even  its  amplitude  will  be  but  promise 
and  symbol  of  what  none  of  you  can  now  measure. 

Halls,  libraries,  conservatories,  galleries,  platforms,  chairs, 
apparatus — what  breadth  and  uplift  does  your  program  be 
speak  !  Your  scope  is  naught  less  than  to  articulate  the  whole 
mental  aesthetic,  ethical  life  of  this  fourth  city  of  the  nation.. 

If  you  build  as  high  as  you  are  planning  wide,  and  if  this 
community  shall  at  all  realize  and  avail  itself  of  the  opportunity 
which  it  is  your  ambition  to  make  ever  more  ample  and  more 
inviting,  then  this  work  will  have  recognition  as  the  most  com 
manding  feature  of  your  civic  life,  arid  those  (if  there  are  any) 
who  have  questioned  your  peerage  will  praise  your  supremacy. 

I  for  one  wonder  that  any  are  to  be  found  in  such  a  popula 
tion,  and  a  population  of  such  a  quality,  to  hold  lightly  or  wil- 
ingly  to  forego  the  autonomy  of  a  corporation  of  such  high 
omens,  or  to  wish  to  merge  its  individuality  of  ideas  into  the 
mere  bulk  of  commercial  unity  with  a  neighbor  which,  how 
ever  great,  need  not  desire  to  swallow  you  whole  and  alive ! 

Were  I  a  citizen  here,  far  rather  would  I  plead  for  another 
star  in  the  flag,  for  the  erection  of  Long  Island  into  an  inde 
pendent  state  with  Brooklyn  as  its  capital  !  Between  Tioga 
County  and  Manhattan  Island  Albany  would  still  be  busy ! 

But,  letting  all  that  pass,  I  turn  toward  the  things  more  im 
mediately  belonging  to  my  present  permission,  and  crave  your 
sympathetic  hearing. 

This  Brooklyn  is  not  only  a  "city  of  churches,"  but  also  a 
city  of  high-minded  men  and  women,  of  strong  domesticity,  of 


94  THE   STEWARDSHIP   OF   KNOWLEDGE 

fearless  and  cogent  journalism,  of  noble  schools  —  a  city  of 
thoughtful  and  representative  American  life. 

You  have  no  need  of  imported  teaching  or  exhortation. 
Your  Newcastle  needs  neither  to  bring  in  coals  nor  fire ! 

The  best  that  one  can  offer  to  this  municipal  intelligence 
and  zeal,  can  only  reflect,  not  enlarge,  your  own  considerate 
determinations. 

I  should  be  embarassed  and  restrained  in  this  presence  of  so 
many  whose  peer  I  cannot  hope  and  will  not  pretend  to  be, 
did  I  not  know  that  the  most  competent  are  always  the  most 
gentle. 

I  have  no  discoveries,  no  panaceas,  no  surprises  to  propound: 
but  can  only  seek  to  be  the  echo  of  your  own  good  sense,  the 
voice  of  sober  conclusions  that  must  accord  with  your  own 
desires  for  the  reasoned  good  and  true  gain  of  this  great  city, 
and  of  all  our  cities  and  our  land  in  this  decade  that  runs  so 
fast  and  in  that  century  whose  imminent  issues  shall  be  so 
terrific  or  so  august. 

For  thoughtful  souls  must  feel  that  "God's  balances  by 
angels  watched"  were  never  'hung  across  the  skies'  to  measure 
more  potent  results  than  now  are  to  be  weighed.  The  acceler 
ating  pace  of  the  world  commands  our  awe.  The r  step  of 
Providence  rocks  the  round  Earth. 

Esau  and  Jacob  struggle  again  in  the  womb  of  time.  Em 
pires  verge  to  the  day  of  Armageddon  !  ",,»,% ... 

Transient  adjustments,  and  compromises  of  expediency,  must 
give  way  to  the  authority  of  the  Son  of  Man,  and  to  the  arbi 
tration  of  the  peace  of  God. 

I  do  not  deplore,  I  welcome,  an  age  that  puts  all  questions 
to  the  proof,  and  exacts  righteous  relations  to  the  two  funda 
mental  propositions  of  God's  sovereignty  and  man's  unity. 

There  are  no  surds,  or  shall  be  none,  in  the  demonstration 
of  His  wisdom,  who  ordained  this  planet  to  be  a  very  Bethle 
hem  among  the  stars  ! 

The  whining  cowardice  of  pessimism,  and   the  coarse  and 


THE    CITY  THE   FULCRUM  95 

brutal  optimism  of  self-idolatry,  with  its  two  insanities  of  cov- 
etousness  and  carnal  pleasure,  are  alike  repugnant  to   those 
who  both  hear  the  murmur  of  man's  great  unrest  and  listen  to 
the  bird  song  of  God's  dawn ! 
The  only  Healer  comes  ! 

"  The  healing  of  His  seamless  dress 

Is  by  our  beds  of  pain, 
We  touch  Him  in  life's  throng  and  press 
And  we  are  whole  again." 

The  crisis  of  this  fevered  world  is  momentous,  but  under 
Him  "to  whom  all  power  is  given"  it  shall  not  be  a  collapse 
but  a  convalescence  ! 

The  song  of  time  is  not  a  lullaby  nor  a  ballad,  but  it  is  not  a 
dirge.  It  shall  be  an  anthem,  even  the  Gloria  in  Excelsis  Deo, 
et  in  terra  pax  / 

A  child  on  Mt.  Washington  watched  with  his  father  a  glorious 
sunset  as  it  shot  the  clouds  with  unspeakable  splendors,  and 
exclaimed  —  "Oh  papa,  I  see  the  Doxology."  Let  us  seek 
the  heights  where  solar  power  interprets  the  horizons !  Let 
today's  Sun  go  down  —  tomorrow's  shall  rise  ! 

With  that  acumen  which  was  an  inspired  instinct  the  Apostle 
Paul  struck  for  the  cities.  The  city  is  the  fulcrum  of  oppor 
tunity.  Taught  truly  its  cities  shall  tutor  the  land.  Their  sal 
vation  shall  make  all  good  dominant. 

And  so  in  this  instant  which  we  call  now — which  is  always 
the  accepted  time, —  and  in  this  vocal  city  I  try  to  affirm  a 
truth  which  has  in  it  'the  potency  and  promise  of  every  form 
of  life' — this — "THE  STEWARDSHIP  OF  KNOWLEDGE." 

I  am  sure  that  all  your  hearts  are  keyed  to  that  theme,  and 
I  am  thankful  to  speak  to  those  who  already  believe. 

I  stand  here  as  an  inadaquate  but  loyal  representative  of 
one  of  what  Holmes  once  playfully  characterized  as  'the  fresh 
water  colleges.' 

For  some  purposes,  friends,  salt  water  is  not  the  best.  Truly 
it  is  an  element  in  which  the  heirs  of  the  Mayflower  and  the 
Guerriere  have  proved  staunch  and  sturdy  down  to  the  other 


g6  THE   STEWARDSHIP   OF   KNOWLEDGE 

day  when  the  dun  raven  skulked  (or  sulked)  away  from  prov 
ing  the  eagle  wings  of  the  Defender:  but  it  is  among  the  hills 
the  fountains  run  wherefrom  we  drink.  On  the  high  crests 
of  Oneida  County  stands  Hamilton  College,  little  in  some 
ways,  but  to  her  sons  large  and  lovely. 

In  the  name  of  such  a  college,  placed  amid  scenes  worthy 
of  increased  renown,  bound  up  with  patriotic  names,  proud  of 
her  colors  and  her  story,  I  speak  tonight  of  those  guarantees  of 
liberty  of  which  men  educated  in  obligation  are  under  God  the 
sole  guarantors. 

For,  College  or  School,  University  or  Institute,  the  benefic- 
iarys  of  every  endowed  seat  of  learning  or  of  art  are  by  their 
very  relation  constituted  the  heirs  and  the  almoners  of  a  great 
fiduciary  trust. 

Ability  is  answerability  —  everywhere  and  all  ways.  Private 
possession,  all  possession  is  a  public  trust !  Accountability 
cannot  be  escaped. 

There  are  two  sorts  of  souls.  Those  who  seek  for  themselves 
the  advantages  of  things  as  they  are,  and  those  who  seek  to 
give  themselves  to  the  advantage  of  things  as  they  ought  to 
be,  and  therefore  may  be  made  to  be; — those  who  accept  ad 
vancement,  and  those  who  confer  it,  those  who  would  exploit 
the  world  and  those  who  would  save  it  —  benefactors  and  mal 
efactors —  Christ  and  the  thieves  ! 

A  man  is  "  worth  "  what  he  gives,  not  what  he  gets.  One 
has  what  he  bestows,  all  else  has  him!  A  man  of  great  means, 
(whether  of  lucre  or  of  learning)  is  bound  to  be  a  man  of  great 
ends.  The  royal  souls  are  the  generous.  Genius  is  but  another 
name  for  generosity. 

"  Thyself  and  thy  belongings 
Are  not  thine  own  so  proper,  as  to  waste 
Thyself  upon  thy  virtues,  them  on  thee. 
Heaven  doth  with  us  as  we  with  torches  do, 
Not  light  them  for  themselves;  for  if  our  virtues 
Do  not  go  forth  of  us,  't  were  all  alike 
As  if  we  had  them  not.    Spirits  are  not  finely  touched, 
But  to  fine  issues." 


THE   VIGIL    OF    CONSCIENCE  97 

Possession,  of  every  sort,  is  opportunity:  but  without  dis 
tribution  possession  is  infamy. 

He  is  the  true  millioniare  who  rejoices  to  have  a  million  heirs  ! 

Each  of  us,  to  the  extent  of  that  endowment  which  God 
gives  him,  is  a  legatee  that  he  may  be  a  steward.  It  is  the 
common  law  af  all  trusts  that  they  can  not  be  delegated. 
They  must  be  executed  or  defaulted  !  In  the  court  of  the 
Supreme  Surrogate,  many  a  will  constitutes  an  indictment. 

And  what  is  true  in  the  stewardship  of  crass  material  wealth 
is  also  true  in  the  stewardship  of  mental  and  administrative 
ability.  Who  can,  must. 

The  sybarite  who  uses  an  elegant  and  fastidious  leisure  in 
purveying  to  mere  literary  taste,  who  is  dainty  in  mere  editions, 
a  glutton  in  books,  and  who  in  the  seclusion  of  a  library  ignores 
or  disdains  the  woe  of  the  world,  makes  of  his  knowledge  a 
toy  and  not  a  tool.  He  too  is  but  a  miser. 

This  strenuous  age,  wherein  still  the  '  people  are  destroyed 
for  lack  of  knowledge'  demands  of  us  our  all  and  our  best. 

If  shadows  are  to  fall  from  the  truth,  and  falsehood  die,  the 
times  challenge  and  demand  souls  who  shall  be  filled  with  the 
instinct  of  help  and  wear  on  helmet  and  brow  Ich  Dien, —  souls 
ablaze  with  that  love  which  ever  "seeketh  not  her  own,"  and 
who,  trained  for  resolute,  aggressive,  and  undaunted  leader 
ship,  are  exemplars  in  interpreting  every  least  task  by  the 
largest  ideals. 

Municipal  politics,  with  their  constant  conflict  between  the 
sensual  and  sordid  and  the  honest  and  humane,  furnish  a  test 
between  soldiership  and  shirking.  The  reeking  vats  of  city 
government  demand  persistently  antiseptic  men.  These,  or 
the  doom  of  putrid  blood  !  It  is  by  an  indomitable  resistance 
of  those  who  would  suffer  our  civil  rulers  to  be  a  praise  to  evil 
doers  and  a  terror  to  them  that  do  well,  that  the  wicked  are 
not  to  walk  on  every  side  while  the  vilest  men  are  exalted. 
Sleepy  citizens  can  not  resist  the  sleepless  devil.  True  liberty 
does  not  come  cheap.  Vigilance  is  none  too  high  a  price  to 


$8  THE  STEWARDSHIP  OF  KNOWLEDGE 

pay  for  it.  But  it  is  because  those  who  know  are  too  listless 
in  the  doing,  because  of  the  gigantic  sum  in  default  from  those 
who  could  and  will  not,  that  for  our  epileptic  spasms  of  public 
virtue  we  condone  our  perennial  neglects.  "The  fault  is  not 
with  our  stars  but  with  ourselves,  that  we  are  underlings." 

The  Son  of  Man  came  to  break  down  all  middle  walls  of 
partition.  He  shall  yet  have  His  triumphant  way  on  Earth ! 

The  Church  He  established — not  the  nominalists  who  merely 
say  'Lord,  Lord' :  but  those  who  seek  what  he  sought  for  men, 
as  men,  —  that  true  church  against  which  neither  the  treachery 
of  false  friends  nor  the  hate  of  open  adversaries,  nor  the  gates 
of  Hell,  shall  prevail — that  is  the  "pattern  in  the  mount" 
of  what  society,  in  all  its  international  common  life,  is  intended 
to  be,  and  of  what  under  His  augmenting  control  it  shall  become  ! 

The  instant  abolition  of  differences  is  impossible — it  must 
come  by  the  slow  spirals  of  process:  but  the  abolition  of  indif 
ference  is  both  possible  and  imperative.  This,  or  the  deluge. 

The  true  Sociology  (and  that  alone  is  the  true  patriotism, 
all  else  being  insular  and  parochial)  —  the  true  Sociology  is 
an  utterly  applied  Christianity.  All  unapplied  or  partially 
applied  theory  is  but  parody,  or  even  blasphemy ! 

All  that  is  not  human  is  inhuman.  All  classes  are  'danger 
ous  classes.' 

If  this  be  'preaching'  the  very  stones  cry  it  out  ! 

Our  time  then  is  none  for  gentlemanly  young  women  and 
lady-like  young  men.  Of  such  there  is  already  '  an  elegant 
sufficiency' — the  supply  has  long  exceeded  any  rational 
demand. 

A  dude  (like  the  glazed  paper  upon  pasteboard  boxes)  is  a 
low  grade  man  with  a  high  grade  finish  !  He  reminds  one  of 
the  remark  that  'the  Almighty  must  have  a  sense  of  humor,  or 
He  would  not  have  made  monkeys'!  These  silken  loiterers 
with  falsetto  lisp  and  drawl  and  hand-shake  like  a  penguin,  are 
a  satire  and  a  shame.  Sincerity  repudiates  them  as  super 
cargoes  and  incubi. 


POWER    A    MEANS   TOWARD    INFLUENCE  gg 

Plato  defined  Man  as  "a  two-legged  animal  without  feathers:" 
but  Diogenes  picked  a  chicken  and  said,  "there  is  Plato's  man." 
These  dawdlers  amid  the  hunger  and  sorrow  of  the  world  are 
impotents  and  imbeciles,  whom  a  true  sense  of  the  stewardship 
of  all  life  will  shudder  off. 

Nor  are  sardonic  and  pessimistic  souls  wanted  in  this  God's 
world.  A  pessimist  is  a  man  who  hopes  for  the  worst !  "  Every 
thing  as  aint  lone  and  lorn  goes  contrary"  with  him.  He  is  of 
the  Gummidge  family.  He  has  stood  so  long  that  he  is 
soured !  No !  The  leaders  are  always  believers.  Doubt  is 
palsied.  Its  cry  is  the  cry  of  the  barren  womb !  Doubt  is 
often  the  pique  and  mortification  which  attends  the  disap 
pointment  of  an  attempted  omniscence.  Those  who  best  help 
their  generation  are  such  as  are  resolute  to  find  not  the  mere 
facts  of  this  terrestrial  environment:  but  to  use  these  con 
structively  toward  the  betterment  of  that  relation  to  God  the 
Father  and  to  Man  the  Brother,  whose  last  and  unsynonymed 
word  is  love. 

"The  increase  and  diffusion  of  knowledge,"  to  use  your 
quotation  of  Washington,  must  come  at  last  to  this.  "He  that 
loveth  not  knoweth  not."  "Tho  I  have  all  knowledge  and 
have  not  love  I  am  nothing." 

He  who  came  "that  men  might  have  life,  and  have  it  more 
abundantly"  was  the  supreme  Teacher  because  He  was  the 
supreme  Lover  of  souls.  To  evoke  and  enlarge  the  best  sen 
timents  of  men,  to  quicken  their  joy  by  fitting  them  to  bestow 
as  well  as  to  receive,  this  is  basilar  in  any  true  philosophy  of 
education. 

The  increase  of  power  is,  at  last,  in  order  to  the  increase  of 
influence.  Men  are  to  be  lifted,  broadened,  deepened,  that 
they  may  not  only  rise  to  these  larger  measures,  but  most  of 
all  realize  and  prove  that  they  have  so  risen  by  imparting  their 
new  dimensions  to  their  kind.  The  kingdom  of  Heaven  is  the 
leaven  of  this  philanthropy !  Acquisitiveness  of  ideas  is  only 
a  mean  hoarding  unless  these  are  transmuted  into  character — 


100  THE   STEWARDSHIP   OF    KNOWLEDGE 

character,  which  as  a  'signet'  proves  its  intaglio  upon  all  it 
touches.  All  learning,  little  or  large,  'is  a  dangerous  thing'  if 
it  is  idolized  as  an  end  and  not  consecrated  as  a  means.  It  is 
a  dissonant  jargon  of  shibboleths, — "a  clanging  cymbal" — if 
its  stewardship  is  refused. 

Here  lies  the  paramount  nobility  of  the  real  teacher's  office 
and  calling,  and  that  vocation  touches  its  topmost  dignity  in 
realizing  that  influence  always  transcends  instruction  and  that 
interpretation  by  sympathy — a  seminal  and  genial  purpose  — 
is  the  ideal  of  the  master's  art. 

The  true  pedagog  is  saved  from  the  besetting  danger  of 
pedantry  by  heeding  that  he  is  a  leader  of  youth.  Life  alone 
kindles  life.  Boy  or  man,  whoever  turns  a  plastic  side  to 
another,  bestows  an  opportunity  that  would  thrill  an  angel. 

Those  men  and  women,  young  men  and  maidens,  who  accept 
the  advantages  of  your  rare  offers  of  illumination  and  inspira 
tion  are  rich  indeed,  but  happy  beyond  all  these  are  those 
whom  you  commission  with  the  privilege  of  this  great  giving. 

It  will  be  such  an  interpretation  as  I  now  urge  that  shall 
save  your  Institute  from  the  curse  and  paralysis  of  institu- 
tionalism  ! 

No  sordid  and  cloistral  spirit  can  feed  the  mind-hunger, 
and  deeper  soul-hunger,  of  our  time.  The  mind  itself  will 
reject  that  which  does  not  use  the  heart  to  reach  the  heart. 

But  to  discover  to  another  his  latent  capacities  of  reflection, 
of  feeling,  of  aspiration,  of  purpose,  is  to  turn  a  task  into  a 
pean  of  joy.  Here  is  wisdom. 

The  goal  of  life  is  an  all-around  manhood  to  the  glory  of 
God.  The  danger  of  us  all  is  a  narrow  specialism,  a  protuberant 
and  lop-sided  particularity,  a  danger  which  nothing  can  so 
well  forfend  as  an  early  zeal  for  'our  neighbor's  good,'  a  pur 
pose  to  escape  from  egotistic  abstraction  by  finding  the  les 
sons  afforded  in  the  proximate  man.  Subjective  aspiration 
needs  translating  into  objective  helpfulness.  Declaimed  gen 
eralizations  about  humanity  and  the  age  and  education  are 


TRUE  FREEDOM  IS  TO  SHARE  IOI 

excellent  to  run  wind-mills:  but  zeal  for  everybody  is  not 
nearly  as  important  as  fidelity  to  some  one.  For  a  world  is  a 
sum  of  individuals. 

All  of  us  are  'debtors  both  to  the  wise  and  to  the  foolish '  to 
transmit  with  increment  the  benefits  of  that  vast  intellectual 
and  spiritual  endowment  of  which,  by  no  supreme  merits  of 
our  own,  but  by  the  providence  of  God,  we  are  the  beneficiaries 
in  an  unreckonable  sum. 

Hail  then  to  every  plan  and  every  task  that  affirms  and  main 
tains  the  altitude  and  outlook  of  such  a  stewardship  of  truth. 

All  good  and  growth  to  the  endeavors  of  this  people's  uni 
versity  whose  new  year  of  enlarged  service  is  tonight  begun; 

for, 

"  Is  true  freedom  but  to  break 
Fetters  for  own  dear  sake, 
And  with  leaden  hearts  forget 
That  we  owe  mankind  a  debt  ? 
No  !  true  freedom  is  to  share 
All  the  chains  our  brothers  bear, 
And  with  heart  and  hand  to  be 
Earnest  to  make  others  free." 

Pale  and  poor  are  all  these  words  of  mine:  but  great  and 
lustrous  is  the  text.  Gladly  I  would  disappear  behind  a  theme 
so  large  and  so  alluring.  Truth  held  as  a  sacred  trust  —  this  is 
the  life  and  light  of  men.  This  is  the  calling  and  election  of 
scholarship  of  whatever  degree.  This  is  the  'liberal  education' 
offered  us  by  the  Giver  of  all  good.  Under  this  banner  may 
you  wage  and  win  your  new  battle  of  Long  Island ! 


lEtbics  in  politics 

SPEECH  AT  THE  CXXVII  BANQUET 
OF  THE  CHAMBER  OF  COMMERCE  OF  THE 

STATE  OF  NEW  YORK 
NEW  YORK  CITY,  NOVEMBER  ig,  1895 

Mr.  President,  Gentlemen,  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  and  all 
good  Friends  —  It  is  with  an  unfeigned  diffidence,  not  to  say 
anxiety,  that  I  find  myself  confronted  by  this  company  and 
occasion.  This  house  of  representatives  stands  for  so  much, 
and  its  attention  demands  so  much,  that  any  such  post-prandial 
tyro  as  myself  must  sympathize  with  the  agued  BELSHAZZAR, 
as  he  attempts  to  meet  its  critical  exactions.  And  yet  I  am 
as  sure  of  your  generous  forbearance,  as  I  am  grateful  for 
your  confiding  hospitality. 

A  witty  parson,  whom  I  knew,  once  said  to  a  company  of 
theologs — "Young  men,  you  will  have  observed  that  all  the 
great  preachers  have  great  congregations  —  the  way  then  to  be 
a  great  preacher  is  to  have  a  great  congregation  !"  I  would, 
for  your  sakes,that  the  humorous  sophism  were  true.  [  Laughter.  ] 
I  heard  of  a  man  who  rose  to  speak  in  the  chapel  of  Auburn 
prison.  There  were  about  1,700  auditors,  in  compact  rows,  all 
modestly  and  appropriately  attired,  and  in  his  embarrassment, 
the  minister  began  —  "Ahem,  I'm  glad  to  see  so  many  of  you 
here  today  !"  In  like  confusion,  I  can  only  say,  "  Me  too." 
[Laughter.]  For  you  are  so  well  wonted  to  competent  and 
cogent  speech,  that  it  is  a  pity  to  make  this  time  an  exception 
to  the  adage  that  "to  him  that  hath  shall  be  given,"  or  as  it 
was  condensed  by  a  shrewd  feminine  and  rural  tongue,  "Them 
that  has,  gits."  [Laughter.] 

The  president  of  almost  anything,  is  a  man  expected  to  keep 


A    DEMAND    FOR    AGILITY  103 

ideas  on  tap,  with  a  spigot  for  every  call.  A  college  president, 
even  if  a  small  president  of  a  large  college,  is  supposed  to  have 
an  artesian  supply  of  talk.  A  barrel  of  addresses  and  a  barrel 
of  sermons,  and  always  ready  to  fire  with  both  barrels.  I  con 
fide  to  you  that  I  have  but  a  small  keg  and  without  compart 
ments.  It  goes  on  a  swivel,  like  a  churn,  and  is  labeled  "  Ser 
mon  "  on  one  end  and  "  Talk  "  on  the  other.  An  address  is 
but  a  sermon  upside  down,  and  a  sermon  is  an  address  other 
end  up.  It  does  require  a  certain  briskness,  like  that  of  the 
deacon,  who,  when  asked  to  "  lead"  replied,  "  I  was  goin'  to 
make  some  remarks,  but  I  suppose  I  can  put  them  in  the  form 
of  a  prayer,"  or,  like  that  of  the  Yankee,  who,  taking  a  boat 
load  of  shoe  pegs  to  New  Orleans,  and  finding  the  market 
"  long,"  invented  a  machine,  sharpened  the  other  ends,  and 
sold  them  for  oats.  A  sermon  differs  from  an  address,  as  a 
pie  differs  from  a  tart,  merely  in  the  form  of  the  crust.  [Laugh- 
ter.] 

Of  a  sermon  or  of  a  speech  often  the  best  is  the  text.  Gen 
eral  PORTER,  who  is  the  other  man  to  blame  for  my  being  here, 
evidently  had  in  mind  his  fable  of  the  New-Englanders  who 
"crossed  their  bees  with  lightning  bugs,  so  they  could  work 
o'nights,"  when  he  gave  me  twenty  minutes  and  all  the  diction 
ary.  His  liberality  of  permitted  topic  reminded  me  of  an  old 
BARNUM  poster,  which  ran,  "This  is  the  most  gigantic,  out 
landish  and  unreasonable  performance  in  the  world  !  "  "Any 
thing  I'd  like."  It  suggests  that  small  girl,  who,  when  her 
fond  father  took  her  to  see  the  new  cradleful  of  twins,  medi 
tated  a  moment  and  then  queried,  "  Did  any  of  'em  get  away  ?  " 
[Laughter.] 

What  not  to  say  has  been  my  quandary.  A  man  was  run 
over  by  a  heavy  wagon,  and  stepping  from  the  crowd  a  young 
mistress  of  simple  surgery,  sure  of  her  attainments,  whipped 
out  splints  and  rolled  linen,  and  deftly  proceeded  to  bandage 
the  broken  leg  of  the  sufferer.  As  soon  as  possible  he  was 
taken  to  a  surgeon.  "Who,  (said  the  expert,)  applied  this 


104  ETHICS    IN   POLITICS 

bandage  ?  "  The  maiden  modestly  confessed  her  handiwork. 
"It  is  well  done,  (said  the  surgeon,)  but  it  is  on  the  wrong 
leg  !"  [Laughter.] 

Gentlemen,  please  remember,  that  it  is  dangerous  to  sleep 
when  the  gas  is  turned  on  unlighted.  I'm  much  afraid  that 
you  will  say  as  did  the  farmer's  wife  upon  viewing  the  hippo 
potamus,  "  My,  ain't  he  plain!  "  or  be  ready  to  write  with  the 
stone-cutter  down  in  Maine,  who,  having  to  chisel,  for  a 
lamented  and  scrawny  wife,  "Lord,  she  was  thine,"  found  no 
room  for  the  final  letter  of  the  last  word. 


ETHICS  have  place  in  politics,  because  they  have  place  in 
everything.  All  human  questions  are  at  last  ethical.  Politics 
is  not  the  art  of  office-getting,  but  is  concerned  with  every 
policy  and  program,  every  interest  and  exigency,  that  affects 
the  people.  The  insisting  that  this  or  that  tremendous  issue 
must  be  "taken  out  of  politics  "  would  be  amusing,  were  it  not 
so  fatuous.  Men  sometimes  rise  to  urge  that  a  given  matter 
must  be  eliminated  from  "sentiment"  and  from  theories  of 
right  and  wrong,  that  it  may  be  considered  "  practically." 
Impotence!  Sentiment  —  moral  sentiment,  is  the  one  thing 
with  which  all  politics  must  at  last  reckon.  Duty  and  feeling 
are  omnipresent,  and  will  be  found  omni-prevalent,  because, 
under  God,  they  are  omnipotent.  That  alone  is  "  practical" 
which  is  ethical.  All  government  is  ethical,  being  either  good 
government  or  misgovernment. 

Men  tried  once  to  take  slavery  out  of  politics,  as  now  they 
attempt  to  transfer  to  some  other  realm,  some  no-man's-land, 
the  question  of  that  power  which  fills  with  its  vomit  our  cities 
and  our  capitols.  This  land,  believe  it,  cannot  endure,  half- 
sober  and  half-drunken.  Whatever  debauches  labor  and 
wrongs  it  of  the  52  days  of  rest,  ordained  in  that  code  whose 
mercy  is  written  in  the  very  nerves  of  mankind,  is  a  question 
that  may  be  avoided  and  postponed,  but  must  at  last  be  met, 


LOCOMOTOR    ATAXIA  105 

and  weighted  by  all  arrears  of  delay.  It  is  cowardly  to  shuffle  it. 
No.  Politics  is  not  a  game,  it  is  a  task.  It  rests  in  those 
principles,  without  which  parties  suppurate.  Great  LINCOLN, 
with  his  sane  and  seer-like  sense  of  the  ultimate  might  of 
morals,  laid  his  eye,  as  if  to  the  sights  of  a  long  rifle,  and  said, 
"Nothing  is  ever  settled  until  it  is  settled  right."  [Applause.] 

Last  year,  so  shows  your  record,  you  were  as  happy  here  as 
a  group  of  boys  with  a  new-milch  cocoanut.  This  year  you 
are  wiping  your  lips  on  the  husks.  All  of  our  hats  (for  I,  too, 
live  in  the  Empire  State)  were  suddenly  too  small  for  us! 
Now,  there  is  on  this  Island  a  demand  for  Pond's  extract, 
which  not  even  Mr.  ROOSEVELT  can  supply. 

You  were,  then,  as  pleased  as  a  woman  who  once  told  me  of 
a  local  revival  of  an  earlier  writer,  saying:  "  We  had  a  great 
mess  o'  converts !"  You  thought  the  manna  might  keep  over. 
It  soured.  You  did  not  remember  to  reckon  that  with  the  venal 
and  lupine  power  which  you  opposed,  one  summer  only  makes 
a  swallow. 

Suddenly  the  new  moral  vigor  of  this  great  City  was  seized 
with  loco  motor  ataxia,  which  your  lexicon  defines  for  you  as  "a 
disease  of  the  spinal  chord,  characterized  by  peculiar  disturb 
ances  of  gait  and  difficulty  of  coordinating  voluntary  move 
ments."  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  it  may  not  become  "progressive." 

Let  my  poor  voice  be  the  phonograph  to  recall  a  period 
from  a  letter,  which,  a  year  ago,  you  heard  with  vigorous 
applause:  "Any  tricky  manipulator  or  political  expert,  of 
whatever  complexion,  who  undertakes,  at  this  date,  to  train 
victory  upon  political  lines,  to  limit  it  by  political  ambitions, 
and  to  prostitute  it  to  political  ends,  is  an  execrable  traitor  to 
our  municipal  interests,  and  ought  to  receive  from  us  all, 
regardless  of  distinctions  of  faith  or  party,  that  contempt 
always  due  to  an  attempt  to  emasculate  great  opportunities  by 
fingering  them  meanly  and  pettifoggingly." 

There  spoke  your  SAVONAROLA  !  I  find  that  MICAIAH  and 
MALACHI,  and  JOHN  BAPTIST  and  PETER  and  KNOX,  and  LATI- 


106  ETHICS   IN   POLITICS 

MER,  and  all  that  indomitable  line,  have  not  been  truant  from 
their  own  times,  but  have  always  arraigned  the  living  iniquity 
and  defended  the  beleaguered  truth.  It  is  one  of  the  emolu 
ments  of  a  real  prophet  to  be  misunderstood  and  misrepre 
sented,  and  to  find  foes  in  his  own  household.  It  is  also  his 
sure  mark  that  not  for  this  does  he  hesitate  or  recant.  The 
preachers  of  genuine  righteousness  speak  in  the  second  person 
and  in  the  present  tense. 

But  you  applauded  then.  Will  you  take  it  back  ?  You  can 
not  take  it  back.  Surely  1894  was  not  an  inspiration  that 
showed  itself  only  in  the  gift  of  tongues  and  that  denied  their 
interpretation  ! 

This  great  municipality  is  in  the  condition  of  that  patient, 
whom,  having  examined  him,  his  physician  overwhelmed  with 
effusive  congratulations,  explaining,  "  My  dear  sir,  my  dear 
sir,  you  have  a  disease  that  was  supposed  to  be  extinct." 
[Laughter.] 

What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ?  Relapse  into  civic 
pessimism  and  pussilanimity  ?  "Lackey  the  varying  tide,"  or 
rather,  say,  "  Once  done  can  be  done  again.  Done  well  can  be 
done  better."  After  Chancellorsville,  Gettysburg,  and  by  and 
by  Appomatox.  [Applause.] 

You  know  the  legend  of  the  Scandinavian  demigod,  who, 
thinking  to  twist  out  a  huge  root,  found  he  had  grappled  the 
head  of  the  great  serpent  coiled  about  the  Earth.  Those  are 
really  beneficent  humiliations  which  acquaint  us  with  the  size 
of  our  tasks. 

A  man  might  as  well  attempt  to  stay  hunger  with  popped- 
corn  as  to  cram  the  stomach  of  his  sense  with  the  notion  that 
sporadic  protestations  of  virtue  can  terrify  perennial  rascality. 
Intermittent  reform  is  just  enough  to  advertise  the  business  it 
opposes.  Remember  Christ's  parable  of  the  tenantless  house, 
the  restless  devil  walking  thro  dry  places,  and  the  latter  state 
of  the  man  who  forgot  that  it  is  not  enough  to  expel  the  bad, 
but  that  it  is  necessary  to  dispossess  it  by  installing  the  good. 


A   BALLOT    NOT   AN    OPINION    BUT   A    PLEDGE  107 

A  trouble  with  many  reforms,  personal  as  well  as  public,  is 
that  they  are  critical  rather  than  constructive.  They  dig  the 
cellar,  but  they  do  not  build  the  house.  They  lack  architect 
ure.  They  imagine  that  a  ballot  has  value  per  se,  whereas  it  is 
good  only  as  it  is  a  note  of  hand,  a  promise  to  do.  If  it  does 
not  stand  for  a  will,  a  will  that  will  find  ways  or  make  them, 
then  it  is  only  a  waste  shred  of  wood  pulp  ! 

No;  eye  to  eye,  foot  to  foot,  must  our  cities  be  retaken,  as 
once  they  crowded  back  the  Commune  in  Paris.  For  this  war 
of  thethreshholdno  "ninety  days  men"  will  answer.  [Applause.] 

I  asked  a  friend  of  mine  what  not  to  speak  of  here.  I  appre 
ciate  his  shrewd  reply:  "No  Rum,  Romanism  and  Rebellion, 
no  politics,  nor  much  religion."  The  only  rebels  hereabouts 
I  know  of  today  are  in  the  Sandwich  Islands  and  in  Cuba.  I 
believe  they  will  at  last  win  all  of  their  two  cases.  I  hope  so. 

As  to  the  Roman  church,  I  thank  God  for  its  abundant  good 
fruits  among  us,  for  its  increase  of  grace,  and  for  its  present 
testimony  for  law  and  liberty,  and  against  treason  and  vice.  I 
do  not  wish  to  see  it,  any  more  than  I  wish  to  see  the  Presby 
terian  church  allied  to  the  State  as  such.  Neither  could  ever 
be.  Because  I  am  an  American  and  a  Prostestant,  I  protest 
against  both  the  arguments  and  methods  of  the  A.  P.  A.  God 
bless  all  who  name  Christ  in  sincerity,  say  I,  and  give  them 
light  and  mutual  love. 

As  to  Rum,  it  speaks  for  itself.  The  saloon  is  non-bi-anti  — 
or  multi-partisan,  just  as  suits  its  purpose.  It  is  for  itself.  It 
is  the  great  public  courtesan,  and  seduces  legislators  with 
absolute  impartiality.  In  responsibility  for  its  waste,  dis- 
1  honors  are  easy.'  "  Making  nice  of  no  vile  hold,"  it  sets  the 
blistering  iron  of  its  approbation  and  ownership  upon  dema 
gogues  and  panderers  of  all  given  names.  I  am  proud  that 
the  metropolis  of  my  native  State  has  at  last  a  mastiff  whose 
bite  is  even  better  than  his  bark.  [Applause.] 

Well,  "  No  politics  and  not  much  religion."  Let  me  then 
"preach  against  the  Mormons,  for  they  have  no  friends  in  the 


108  ETHICS    IN   POLITICS 

congregation,"  or  let  me  rouse  you  to  recognize  the  unspeak- 
ableness  of  the  Turk  ! 

Never  did  religion,  not  the  snarl  of  ecclesiastics,  but  the 
religion  that  is  pure  and  undefiled,  more  need  to  come  close 
to  affairs.  Never  did  affairs  more  need  to  be  interpreted  by 
the  everlasting  yea  and  nay  of  Almighty  God. 

Politics  covers  the  whole  mechanism  of  life;  religion  con 
tains  its  whole  motive.  Forego  these  two  and  you  are  in 
vacua.  I  know  that  I  am  not  to  handle  the  shibboleths  of  sect 
or  party;  but  surely  I  may  and  I  do  appeal  to  both  the  rever 
ence  and  the  patriotism  of  this  Chamber.  And  so  I  name  the 
exacting  and  determinate  fact  that  the  battle  ground  where 
our  institutions  are  to  fight  for  very  life  is  the  municipality. 
EMERSON  said,  "Cities  illustrate  the  land."  A  century  ago 
our  cities  contained  one-thirtieth  of  our  population.  Now 
they  contain  one-third.  Our  corporate  life  is  for  the  most 
part  either  urban  or  just  suburban.  Whatever,  then,  blesses 
or  curses  the  City,  perjures  or  ennobles  it,  animalizes  or  spir 
itualizes  it, —  debases  or  exalts  the  Nation.  And  in  view  of 
what  is  so  undeniable,  I  make  this  my  main  contention,  and  it  is 
an  ethical  contention,  that  national  and  municipal  politics  of 
right  ought  to  be  absolutely  distinct.  A  City  is  a  great  busi 
ness,  National  watchwords  bring  only  mischief  into  its  man 
agement.  Partisanship  should  have  no  more  to  do  with  the 
Police,  the  Health  department,  the  Fire  force,  with  street- 
cleansing,  than  with  the  Army.  This  is  truism;  but  how  far 
are  our  chief  cities  from  seeing  it.  [Applause.]  A  vicious 
theory  must  be  exterminated  before  the  Common  Councils  of 
our  land  shall  cease  to  be  the  opportunity  of  scoundrels.  Men 
are  not  always  to  be  plundered,  ring-ridden,  boss-driven, 
crank-confused,  unless  by  consent.  This  City  has  reached 
the  age  of  consent !  Has  it  not  also  reached  the  age  of  resis 
tance?  Mere  pleasuring,  the  dry-rot  of  avarice,  the  timidity 
of  investment,  the  dawdler  who  cares  more  for  the  points  of  a 
horse  than  he  does  for  the  suffering  of  men,  the  Anglomaniac, 


THE    CRIME    OF   APATHY 


I09 


the  dude,  (fake  and  fad  in  one,)  all  this  and  these  must  be 
renounced  for  the  sake  of  a  clean  City,  administered  by  clean 
men.  Apathy  is  a  crime.  The  non-voter  ranks  with  the  pur 
chased  voter,  his  price  being  selfish  ease.  His  nonchalance  is 
civic  treason.  Whether  such  a  clean  City  can  be  had  is  the 
crucial  test  of  the  Republic.  The  bi-partisanship  of  setting  a 
thief  to  catch  a  thief  won't  do.  Deals,  shifts,  evasions,  must 
be  forsworn.  The  ranks  of  plain  men  must  be  convinced,  and 
by  whatever  missionary  work  is  needed,  that  health,  safety, 
economy,  manhood,  all  rest  in  honest  government.  Stern, 
resonant  and  incorrigible  the  cry  must  go  up  from  this  rock- 
ribbed  island,  "  Nothing  for  tribute,  everything  for  defence." 
[Applause.] 

Is  the  situation  today  in  any  of  our  chief  cities  without 
shame?  You  recall  DE  QUINCY'S  consideration  of  "Murder  as 
a  fine  art."  He  says,  "  My  face  is  set  against  it  in  toto.  For  if 
once  a  man  indulges  himself  in  murder,  very  soon  he  comes  to 
think  little  of  robbing,  and  from  robbing  he  comes  next  to 
drinking  and  Sabbath  breaking,  and  from  that  to  incivility  and 
procrastination.  Once  begin  upon  this  downward  path,  you 
never  know  where  you  are  to  stop.  Many  a  man  has  dated 
his  ruin  from  some  murder  or  other  that  perhaps  he  thought 
little  of  at  the  time."  Delicious.  With  a  similar  absurdity  of 
anti-climax  we  may  say  of  our  American  civic  conditions  that 
they  are  both  abominable  and  disagreeable  ! 

Just  now  there  is  a  strife  of  cities,  as  there  was  once  a  strife 
among  the  twelve  disciples,  "which  should  be  the  greatest." 
But  bigness  is  not  greatness.  Bulk  is  not  honor.  You  talk  of 
a  greater  New  York.  But  this  City  is  far  more  in  need  of 
quality  than  of  quantity.  So  is  Brooklyn.  Lumping  the 
moral  assets  of  these  two  towns  will  not  increase  them.  Mix 
ture  is  not  multiplication.  Redistribution  is  not  regeneration. 
There  will  be  a  truly  greater  New  York  when  there  is  a  tre 
mendous  increase  of  greater  New  Yorkers.  The  extinguished 
foreigner,  who,  for  obvious  reasons,  chose  to  remove  the  con- 


HO  ETHICS    IN    POLITICS 

test  of  this  autumn  from  the  good  salt  water  which  once 
floated  "  Le  Bon  Homme  Richard"  and  the  '•  Kearsarge,"  has 
recently  attempted  to  launch  the  issue  in  dish-water.  Avoid 
his  way.  [Laughter.]  As  true  Defenders  of  the  land  meet 
the  race.  Metropolitan  honor  is  the  goal.  Take  the  whole 
contention  out  of  the  dish-water  of  partisan  recrimination,  and 
launch  it  in  the  blue  open  of  patriotism. 

"  It  may  be  that  the  gulfs  shall  wash  us  down, 
It  may  be  we  shall  touch  the  happy  isles." 

If  we  would  be  no  longer  underlings  to  the  dynasty  of  a 
theory  that  finds  no  place  in  politics  for  ethics,  we  must  real 
ize  that  lust  of  power  is  as  fatal  and  as  corrupt  as  lust  of  gain, 
and  that  a  deal  in  which  offices  are  the  price  is  as 
oblique  as  a  deal  in  which  the  price  is  money.  Our  hope 
lies  in  the  clear  recognition  of  our  dangers,  in  a  deep  sense  of 
the  wholeness  of  the  interests  involved, —  in  city,  common 
wealth  and  country.  Realizing  the  formidableness  of  the 
equation  to  be  solved,  roused,  resolute,  angry,  it  is  within  your 
power,  gentlemen,  to  move  and  guide  forces,  that  at  least  in 
these  two  counties,  shall  make  the  antiquated  serfdom  to  par 
tisan  competition  for  spoils,  whether  of  place  or  pelf,  obsolete. 
The  men  of  this  Chamber  are  able  to  exert  influences  that 
would  give  this  City  a  new  Evacuation-day,  and  to  set  art 
example  that  would  run  like  the  light.  The  State  of  sturdy 
JOHN  Dix,  and  of  "  Christian  jurists,  starry-pure  like  JAY,"  nay 
our  whole  land,  would  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom.  It  would 
not  be  an  episode:  it  would  be  an  epic.  Bear  with  me  gentle 
men,  if  I  say  that  the  hour  has  come  to  put  all  your  ethics  into 
all  your  politics,  and  to  thrust  aside  the  whole  rancid  philoso 
phy  of  the  wire-puller  and  the  spoilsman. 

Love  —  "love  which  seeketh  not  its  own"  —  love  to  the  stout 
history  and  providential  calling  of  this  splendid  City,  love  to 
this  noble  State,  love  to  our  whole  America,  love  to  Man,  and 
love  to  the  God  of  righteousness, — 

"LOVE  SHALL  FIND  OUT  THE  WAY." 


THE    DAY   IS   AT   HAND  III 

And  so  you  shall 

"  See  Truth's  white  banner  floating  on  before, 
And  the  good  cause,  in  spite  of  venal  friends 
And  base  expedients,  move  to  noble  ends." 

[Applause.] 

With  gratitude  to  the  Spartan  band  who  have  sat  out  this 
full  evening,  I  make  an  end.  It  is  tomorrow,  and  my  up-hill 
task  of  the  twelfth  hour  is  done.  May  the  moral  fast  of  New 
York  City  come  to  its  feast  at  last,  and  with  acclaim,  that 
none  can  measure  now,  the  midnight  pass  over  into  the 
morning ! 


"Seeing  tbe  Tflnseen" 

THE  BACCALAUREATE  SERMON 

TO  THE  GRADUATING  CLASS  OF  1893 

HAMILTON  COLLEGE,  SUNDAY  JUNE  18,  1893 

"He  endured  as  seeing  Him  who  is  invisible." 

Hebrews,  11:27. 

THE  Letter  to  the  Hebrews  was  both  an  argument  and  an 
appeal.  With  its  array  of  fact  and  its  august  consolations, 
there  was  blended  an  unfaltering  and  personal  trust  in  God. 
That  confidence  in  and  commitment  to  Him  is  of  the  very  es 
sence  of  true  religion.  Religion  is  either  the  fulfilment  of  a 
real  relationship,  or  it  is  a  fond  dream.  The  spirit  of  con 
stancy  is  so  sustained  and  illuminative  thro  this  whole  writing 
as  to  make  it,  concerning  faith,  the  classical  source  both  of 
definition  and  instance. 

Not  in  any  special  phase  or  exercise,  but  absolute  and  gen 
eric,  faith  is  affirmed  as  the  basis  of  life  and  the  warrant  of 
all  rational  hope.  The  book  deals  with  the  apparent  vicissi 
tudes  of  an  ever-moving  process,  and  at  the  same  time  with 
the  consistency  and  constancy  of  Him  whoguidesit, — mutability 
and  the  immutable  God.  By  broad  retrospect  it  would  prepare 
souls  to  recognize  and  meet  ungrievingly  the  disciplines  of 
change.  At  the  eleventh  chapter  the  argument  proper  culmin 
ates  with  the  resonant  citation  of  preeminent  believers,  women 
and  men.  Certain  of  the  venerable  roll  are  named,  souls  of 
altitude  that  greeted  the  Sun  from  afar,  and  then,  'time  failing,' 
groups  and  classes  are  summoned,  of  those,  who,  having  won 
their  rest,  make  up  the  celestial  part  of  that  holy  alliance  and 


PHENOMENA   SECONDARY  113 

comradeship  in  which  all  souls  are  one  who  love  and  seek 
the  will  of  God. 

"  Compassed  about  with  so  great  a  cloud  of  witnesses  " — 
(/xaprvp€5  doubly,  in  that  they  were  once  the  spectacle  who  now 
are  the  spectators) — we  are  to  have  the  tremendous  appeal  in 
creased.  The  clenching  thought  is  that  these  veterans  are  to 
have  their  work  perfected  in  those  better  things  provided  for 
later  days  and  riper  faith. 

Fascinating  and  rewarding  as  the  whole  analysis  and  the 
various  aspect  of  this  great  epistle  must  be  found,  we  are 
bound  now  to  press  in  toward  that  core-idea  which  rules  it  all. 

What  was  that  "  wherein  the  elders  had  witness  borne  to 
them?  "  What  is  the  theorem  upon  which  this  chapter  moves  ? 
Why,  at  the  outset,  it  is  given, —  a  definition  which  inspires  our 
whole  instinct  of  flight,  and  lifts  our  eyes  past  the  hills,  past 
the  path  of  the  eagles,  up  the  ways  of  the  angels !  "  Now 
faith  —  (and  right  there  the  writer  leaves  the  ground  and  takes 
the  wings  of  the  morning)  "faith  is  the  proving  of  things  not 
see?i" — the  "  assurance  of  things  hoped  for''  Faith  is  itself  a  proof , 
a  conviction.  This  eleventh  chapter  is  that  proposition  ampli 
fied  by  instance.  It  begins  at  the  beginning  (as  Genesis  and 
John  begin)  with  "  the  word  of  God."  We  know  "that  what 
is  seen  hath  not  been  made  out  of  things  which  do  appear," 
that  is,  (as  the  Greek  noun  " ^cuvo/u van/ "  suggests),  "that  -which 
we  look  upon  did  not  come  from  phenomena"  Spirit  and  life  are 
behind  phenomena.  First-cause  precedes  second  causes. 
Word  is  back  of  world.  The  seen  is  the  result  of  the  unseen. 
The  Creation  is  a  creation,  and  over  and  thro  it  the  Creator 
lives  and  moves,  and  the  creature  who  knows  this  and  so  lives 
joins  the  triumphs  of  such  as  are  here  enrolled. 

It  is  upon  the  thought  that  our  text  condenses,  that 
this  roster  of  great  and  effectual  men  proceeds.  At 
the  point  where  we  station  our  present  study  Moses  is  the 
immediate  instance.  Our  text  analyzes  his  life  and  sums  it. 
Unmatched  and  solitary  that  life  stands  above  all  the  lives  of 


114  SEEING  THE   UNSEEN 

the  old  Testament :  forty  years  in  Egypt,  forty  years  in  Midian, 
forty  years  in  the  Wilderness, —  "endurance"  all  the  way  from 
Nile  side  to  Pisgah  top  ! 

Such  enduring,  under  such  burdens,  borne  by  such  a  man, 
must  be  accounted  for  !  It  must  have  "  assurance  "  and  "  proof" 
under  it.  And  thus  the  writer  to  the  Hebrews  (and  so  to  all 
souls  perplexed  by  ages  of  transition  and  mental  disturbance) 
states  this  epitome  of  all  that  Moses  was  and  did  —  strikes  the 
chord  in  which  all  his  life  was  set — "  He  endured  as  seeing 
Him  who  is  invisible."  From  first  to  last  his  life  was  one  of 
displacements  —  it  was  also  one  of  submissions  because  of 
convictions.  He  accepted  the  loneliness  of  leadership.  He 
became  therein  a  type,  at  once  of  the  sorrow  and  the  grandeur 
of  a  prophetic  soul.  He  did  not  fear  Egypt's  king  ;  for  face 
to  face  he  knew  the  Blessed  and  Only  Potentate.  The  "  King 
eternal  immortal,  invisible,"  made  poor  both  the  riches  and 
the  wrath  of  Pharoah. 

This  contrast  is  contained  in  our  text,  but  the  very  Greek 
states  even  more  broadly  the  secret  of  faith  —  it  is  generic  not 
personal  —  "  TOV  yap  doparov  ok  6pwv  "  —  "  as  seeing  the  unseen" — 
God,  and  all  else  secured  in  God,  the  ruler,  and  the  whole 
realm  beyond  present  vision.  We  keep  both  the  euphony  and 
the  paradox  of  the  holy  page  when  we  say  that/^z/A  is  the  sight 
of  the 'unseen.  That  then  shall  be  our  present  theme.  Tran 
scendental  as  the  statement  is,  it  announces  the  real  wisdom 
and  the  real  life  of  the  soul.  All  uplifted  and  uplifting  souls 
have  endured  as  seeing  the  unseen.  Oh,  that  this  penetrative 
beam  of  truth  might  scatter  the  vagueness  with  which  we  think 
of  Faith!  It  is  the  vision  of  the  invisible — the  "heavenly 
vision."  This  "  conviction  of  things  not  seen"  (v.  i.)  is  a  test 
and  organon.  What  the  eye  is  to  sense,  /^/confidence  in  God  is 
to  the  soul  !  Sense  is  not  the  last  of  us,  we  are  hyper-physical 
• — we  were  made  to  touch  the  impalpable,  to  hear  the  inaudible, 
to  see  the  unseen. 

It  is  this  idea  of  the  soul's  true  function  and  self-prophecy 


FAITH    IS    IN   A   PERSON  115 

that  speaks  in  many  another  New  Testament  expression.  The 
very  word  aopara  marks  that  great  statement  in  the  first  chapter 
of  Romans,  "  the  unseen  things  of  Him  are  seen  by  the  things 
made."  Nature  is  a  telescope  ! 

Paul  speaks  of  Christ  as  "The  image  of  the  unseen  God." 
•'  The  things  seen  are  for  a  while  and  the  things   unseen  are 
forever." 

If  we  "  have  the  eyes  of  our  hearts  enlightened"  we  shall 
look  for  the  reality  that  underlies  the  the  apparent,  and  find 

that  — 

"  Earth  's  crammed  with  Heaven." 

Faith  is  a  "  spirit  of  seeing,"  spiritual  "  second  sight."  Faith 
is  logical.  It  reasons  from  the  consistency  of  God.  The  child 
clutches  his  father's  hand  in  the  night,  knows  him,  trusts  him 
to  guide  and  so  walks  homeward  thro  the  dark,  and  "  we  go  by 
faith,  not  what  we  see."  It  is  faith  to  go  out  "  not  knowing 
whither,"  because  we  know  with  whom. 

Faith  is  always  this  —  confidence  in  and  commitment  to  a  per 
son.  Faith  is  not  guessing,  it  is  not  arguing,  it  is  not  taking 
chances, —  it  is  trusting  someone  who  is  trustworthy.  Trust 
is  more  than  a  persuasion  from  visible  evidence,  it  is  self-prov 
ing.  It  is  not  merely  one  emotion  or  attitude  out  of  many,  it 
is  a  distinct  and  vital  connection  with  what  lies  beyond  the 
boundary  of  the  five  senses.  It  is  "  the  masterlight  of  all  our 
seeing  ;"  for  it  is  the  response  of  our  life  to  His  life  who  gave 
us  ours  —  and  who  made  the  outer  light  the  universal  parable 
of  the  inner.  Soul  at  last  can  be  satisfied  only  with  soul.  We 
"  thirst  for  the  living  God  ",  and  surrendering  to  the  compul 
sions  of  an  irresistable  hope  we  find  suddenly  that  faith  is  the 
guide  of  reason.  Without  faith  reason  is  not  a  safe  guide. 
Certainty  is  more  than  sight,  it  is  insight.  All  progress,  all 
skill,  comes  by  trusting  ourselves  to  that  next  step  which  is 
ever  just  beyond  present  knowledge.  It  is  not  as  a  mere  opti- 
graph  of  Heaven  that  these  scriptures  are  holy  ;  but  because 
they  prompt  that  trust  in  a  trustworthy  God,  which  is  life 


Il6  SEEING  THE   UNSEEN 

eternal  and  already  begun.  Nor  is  it  only  in  man's  relation 
to  God,  but  also  in  his  relation  to  every  other  person 
with  whom  he  has  to  do,  that  "faith"  is  indispensable.  In 
other  matters  also,  ocular  evidence  is  neither  all  nor  chief. 
"Without  faith  it  is  impossible  to  please"  anyone!  The  soul 
itself,  and  the  souls  impartiality,  count  in  all  convictions. 
Everywhere  we  have  to  reckon  with  what  lies  below  the  hori 
zon.  In  all  things  good  faith  is  more  than  compulsion.  There 
is  no  sphere  of  thought  or  action  in  which  it  is  rational  to 
"  dwell  only  in  things  seen"  (Col.  2:18)  to  inspect  only  "the 
things  before  the  face"  (2  Cor.  107).  The  apostle  Peter  uses 
the  very  word  "myopy"  when  he  speaks  (2:  1519)  of  those 
who  are  spiritually  "  near-sighted." 

Everywhere  the  unseen  presses  for  recognition.  Whether 
in  the  laboratory,  or  the  garden,  on  the  judge's  bench,  or  upon 
one's  knees  —  reverence  and  expectancy  toward  the  "things  not 
seen  as  yet"  are  indispensable  to  great  result. 

To  go  on  from  observation  to  classification,  from  conse 
quences  to  cause,  from  instance  to  rule, —  all  assortment  and 
all  synthesis, —  means  faith. 

The  quest  alike  of  the  eager  mind  and  of  the  longing  heart 
is  for  the  ultimate  Unity  in  whom  power  and  pity  meet.  We 
are  not  afraid  of  too  much  learning  but  of  too  little  \  The  legal 
cannot  be  too  exact  ;  and  that  it  may  be  exact  it  must  be  loyal. 
We  are  carefully  to  look  down  that  at  last  we  may  fervently 
look  up  !  Love  is  the  way  of  light. 

We  are  now  already  in  what  we  call  "  the  other  world  ;"  for 
all  God's  realms  are  one.  Only  now  we  are  withheld  from 
the  upper  light.  We  are  shut  within  the  shell  of  sense,  and, 
with  sense,  can  see  only  its  smooth  and  hard  limitations  :  but 
we  have  equipments  for  which  those  walls  are  too  narrow  and 
tho  now  in  embryo  we  reckon  that  wings  mean  something,  and 
with  an  act  which  stakes  itself  upon  the  conviction  of  accessi 
ble  tho  as  yet  unperceived  realities  we  us^  Qur  beak  upon  the 
fragile  and  temporary  wall  ! 


NOT   AN   EXCEPTIONAL    FUNCTION  II7 

We  are  sure  that  the  vast  is  not  a  void,  that  derivative  life 
answers  Creative  life,  that  longing  is  the  clue  whereby  to  track 
love  to  its  source,  that,  conscience  is  a  'right  line'  be 
tween  man  and  his  Maker,  that  "the  spirit  of  man 
is  the  candle  of  the  Lord,"  that  these  things  of  sight 
are  "a  copy  and  shadow  of  the  heavenly  things,"— and 
so,  the  deep  within  us  calling  to  and  answering  the  deep  above 
us,  we  make  God's  statutes  our  songs,  pitch  our  pilgrim  tents 
toward  the  apocalypse,  and  rejoice  in  Him,  "  whom  not  having 
seen  we  love." 

But  let  us  come  close  to  the  fact  that  the  perception  of  that 
which  is  out  of  sight  is  not  an  exceptional  but  a  normal  func 
tion.  In  every  growing  and  advancing  life  men  "  hope  for 
that  which  they  see  not."  All  lofty  imagination  is  of  a  kind  with 
faith.  Duty  uses  the  same  faculties  and  the  same  methods 
that  we  use  in  all  affairs,  only  the  purpose  is  lifted  toward 
God  and  the  scale  prolonged  into  eternity. 

The  life  of  the  spirit  simply  applies  to  the  Being  above 
that  which  every  day  relations  apply  to  the  beings  about  us. 
Civilization  rests  upon  faith.  Society  is  Mosaic  (a  Mosaic  if 
you  please!)  with  that  which  does,  dares,  and  endures,  "as 
seeing  the  unseen."  Faith,  as  religious,  is  not  different  in 
essence,  but  in  direction.  Men  who  renounce  the  service  of 
the  unseen  God,  serve  their  unseen  fellows  with  this  very  faculty. 
Architecture  works  with  the  same  problems  whether  one  builds 
a  church  spire  or  a  grain  elevator,  and  certainty  as  to  the  ex 
ternal  and  as  to  the  eternal  world  is  in  either  case  a  reasoning 
from  the  seen  to  the  unseen.  There  is  no  working  theory,  in 
physics  or  psychics,  that  is  not  an  illustration  of  Faith.  As 
surance  of  the  undiscovered  —  all  induction  —  all  foresight, 
walks  Moses'  way.  Tell  me,  what  other  brilliant  generalization 
from  particulars  ever  shot  such  light  on  man's  mental  or  moral 
path  as  the  thought  of  the  trustworthiness,  the  FIDELITY  OF  THE 
CREATOR  —  that  the  Universe  is  rational  and  not  capricious  ? 

We  eat,  sleep,  trade,  by  faith.     You  wrap  money  or  love  in  a 


Il8  SEEING   THE   UNSEEN 

letter,  scratch  a  few  marks  on  it,  attach  a  stamp,  put  it  into  the 
mail  box  at  the  nearest  corner,  and  wait,  with  a  thousand 
"maybes"  menacing-,  for  your  answer  from  Iceland  or  Cal 
cutta;  all  because  you  believe  in  the  integrity  and  efficiency  of 
the  post  service.  And  is  it  credulity  to  believe  Him  "whose 
eyes  out  run  the  morning  and  who  maketh  spirits  His  messen 
gers  ?  "  You  cable  a  friend  across  the  sea  and  get  his  reply 
by  a  strand  3000  miles  long,  and  yet  you  will  cavil  at  His  word 
"  running  very  swiftly  "  who  said,  "  Before  they  call  I  will  answer 
and  while  they  are  yet  speaking  I  will  hear  !" 

Albany,  and  "51,"  the  fastest  and  promptest  train  in  the 
world  is  12  minutes  late  by  the  board.  Men  walk  watch  in 
hand,  for  they  are  assured  of  the  Empire  State  Express. 
Ten  minutes,  eleven,  and  over  the  Hudson  a  film  of  smoke 
wavers  up,  while,  as  we  watch,  far  this  side,  the  train  curves 
into  sight  and  swings  out  over  the  bridge.  All  is  haste. 
Clang  go  the  testing  hammers  along  the  wheels.  Clank,  clank, 
answer  the  journal  boxes.  Couplers  and  air-tubes  snap  to  their 
places,  and  we  are  behind  "  893."  Tom  Dermody,  white-haired 
but  keen  of  eye,  is  in  the  saddle  there,  eight  feet  over  the  ties. 
He  has  given  the  cups  their  fill  of  velvet  oil;  and  alert  and 
ready  the  creature  waits  with  strange  deep-drawn  sighs,  the 
touch  of  the  hand  that  will  hold  it  to  its  work.  "'Board!''1 
and  at  the  word  the  throttle  feels  the  touch,  the  mass  of 
mechanism  answers  the  mind  that  commands  it  and  we  are  off. 
Six  feet  six,  twenty  feet  at  every  turn,  the  huge  drivers  respond 
to  the  steam.  Up  the  steep  grades,  the  wheels  biting  the 
sanded  track,  swift  and  more  swiftly  past  avenue  and  factory, 
and  the  pusher  is  outsped.  Away  now  into  the  west.  Along 
the  glistening  lines  of  Bessemer,  down  hill  we  go  —  56,  55,  54 
seconds  to  the  mile.  Five  times  each  second  does  that  piston 
make  and  recover  its  24-inch  stroke — a  hundred  tons  of  steel, 
with  a  heart  of  flame,  hurling  itself  toward  sunset !  The  sandy 
plains  swing  backward,  the  Mohawk  unwinds  its  silvery  rib- 


THE    EMPIRE   STATE    EXPRESS 


IIQ 


bon,  the  hills  stand  aside,  and  by  orchard  and  quarry,  thro 
town  and  valley,  in,  out,  swinging,  sliding,  leaping — it  is  ever 
on,  on!  What  a  race!  Curving  as  the  river  curves,  the  train 
seems  to  cling  convulsively  to  the  rails  over  which  it  rushes. 
Can  that  slender  flange  hold  this  awful  centrifugal  force  ? 
How  possible  seems  one  mad  plunge,  with  not  a  soul  left  this 
side  of  eternity  to  tell  what  it  was  like !  And,  now  we  think 
of  it,  is  the  engineer  competent,  cool,  sober  ?  Has  he  good 
eyes  ?  Are  all  the  switches  true  ?  The  semaphores  twitch  to 
the  horizontal:  but  that  is  for  those  who  follow  us.  How  is  it 
ahead  !  No  pause.  Our  steed  drinks  upon  the  gallop.  Rock 
ing  with  the  storm  of  motion,  Tom  Dermody  peers  into  the 
distance  and  draws  the  bar  a  little  wider.  On,  on !  Here 
trailed  the  Iroquois.  Here  Herkimer  struggled  toward  Fort 
Stanwix.  Here  went  Kirkland  thro  the  wilderness  and  the 
winter.  Could  they  rise  up  to  look,  what  would  they  conceive 
this  thing  to  be, —  this  blazing,  screaming  terror — this  tornado 
of  iron?  Behold  adjustment,  contrivance,  fuel,  fire,  force;  — 
nay  more,  it  is  an  epitome  of  this  strenuous  and  Earth-subdu 
ing  age, —  it  is  the  transit  of  the  Saxon!  Now  Deerfield  hills 
throw  back  the  long  shriek,  sharper  than  any  savage  cry  of 
their  wild  days,  and  the  complaining  wheels  smother  their 
riot  pace  under  the  touch  of  the  same  power  that  compelled 
them  to  it.  Slower,  tho  rebelling,  slower,  and  then  —  still. 
"Utica  !"  95  miles  in  90  minutes  !  On  time  ! 

And  you  submit  yourself  to  that  pace  and  peril,  with  its 
multiplied  chances  of  stupid  switchmen,  flaws  in  spike  or  axle, 
imperfect  inspection,  a  thousand  risks  to  the  mile,  and  you 
trust  your  life  and  other  lives  more  precious  to  you,  because  you 
have  confidence  in  the  management  of  the  New  York  Central. 
You  will,  I  say,  trust  yourself  to  all  this  mechanism  which 
you  do  not  understand,  and  to  the  management  with  which 
you  are  unacquainted,  and  yet  insist  that  '  only  seeing  is 
believing' ! 


liO  SEEING  THE  UNSEEN 

What  credulous  incredulity  is  that  which  refuses  to  the 
Creator's  control  of  His  own  world  that  which  it  bestows  upon 
the  officials  of  a  railway  ! 

But  turn  to  the  market.  What  is  credit,  national  or  inter 
national,  but  trust, —  trust  in  that  "which  no  man  hath  seen  or 
can  see"  ? 

Certifications,  vouchers,  endorsements,  bonds,  —  are  these 
'sight'?  What  is  'security'  but  personality?  What  were  our 
banks,  our  whole  system  of  exchange,  the  United  States  Treas 
ury  itself,  without  confidence  in  common  conscience? 

I  say  Faith  is  the  world's  clearing  house.  Financial  infidelity 
breeds  palsy.  What  is  Panic  but  doubt  scaring  itself  into  worse 
doubt?  When  but  a  percentage  of  unbelief  diffuses  thro  the 
world  of  trade,  haggard  calamity  peers  in  at  a  thousand  doors. 
What  if  all  faith  were  destroyed  !  ,That  were  such  a  catastro 
phe  as  if  the  world  were  suddenly  arrested  in  its  turning  and 
all  things  upon  it  flung  into  bottomless  chaos. 

When  relief  comes  after  a  stringent  or  a  barren  market  it  is 
not  because  there  is  more  money,  but  because  there  is  less 
commercial  agnosticism  ! 

And  here  also  remember  that  business  credit  is  what  it  is  by 
a  diffused  Christianity.  The  banks  of  the  world'  are  not  in 
pagan  lands.  By  the  river  of  faith  all  things  flourish. 

No  more  than  I  would  starve  while  having  a  certified  cheque 
upon  the  Chemical  Bank,  no  more  will  I  fail  to  use  what  I  have 
every  reason  to  think  bears  the  very  endorsement  of  God. 

It  is  by  faith,  social,  domestic,  financial,  scholarly,  scientific, 
as  well  as  religious, —  that  we  live.  Faithlessness  is  barbarism. 
If  it  is  barbarism  it  is  also  treason.  Surely;  for  how  can  one 
be  a  patriot  and  at  the  same  time  a  cynic? 

This  sixth  sense  is  good  sense  and  no  other.  Indigent  indeed 
is  he  who  has  it  not.  As  the  vestal  of  God,  nature  lights  our 
way.  It  is  not  by  observing  the  lantern,  but  the  way  it  lightens, 
that  we  get  us  home.  He  who  cares  only  for  objects,  and  not 
for  the  subject  of  them  all,  consents  to  a  mere  optical  illusion. 


ALL  MEN  BELIEVE  I2i 

But  I  would  speak  of  the  Endurance  which  the  sight  of  the 
unseen  teaches  and  inspires.  It  is  this  sight  that  measures 
power  for  daring  and  for  waiting  The  size  of  your  faith  is  the 
size  of  your  manhood.  The  believers  are  the  doers. 

Faith  is  no  idler's  possession.  It  is  a  high  exercise  of 
power.  It  bids  keenly  for  action.  It  is  a  noble  energy  ot  the 
whole  nature.  It  propels  and  compels.  It  is  leadership.  It 
is  brave. 

That  Roman  was  a  stalwart  believer  in  his  city  who  bought 
up  the  land  on  which  the  Carthaginian  army  was  camped  ! 

"There  is  no  unbelief; 
Whoever  plants  a  seed  beneath  the  sod, 
And  waits  to  see  it  push  away  the  clod, 

He  trusts  in  God. 

Whoever  says  when  clouds  are  in  the  sky, 
'Be  patient,  heart,  light  breaketh  by  and  by/ 
Trusts  the  Most  High. 

Whoever  lieth  on  his  couch  to  sleep, 
Content  to  lock  his  sense  in  slumber  deep, 
Knows  God  will  keep. 

Whoever  says  '  Tomorrow,'  'The  unknown,' 
'  The  future,'  trusts  that  Power  alone 
He  dares  disown. 

The  heart  that  looks  on  when  the  eyelids  close, 
And  dares  to  live  when  life  has  only  woes, 
God's  comfort  knows. 

There  is  no  unbelief; 

And  day  by  day,  and  night,  unconsciously, 
The  heart  lives  by  that  faith  the  lips  deny; 

God  knoweth  why." 

It  was  the  sight  of  the  unseen  that  sent  Columbus  over  sea, 
that  kept  Washington  in  heart  as  he  manoeuvered  his  footsore 
regiments  across  the  Jerseys,  and  there  was  never  a  discover,  a 
commander,  a  liberator,  an  inventor,  an  author,  who  was  not 
strong  in  faith,  if  strong  at  all.  It  is  this  presentative  faculty 


122  SEEING  THE  UNSEEN 

that  has  led  to  all  the  realized  marvels  of  science.  The  hero 
ism  alike  of  the  inventor  and  the  martyr  is  faith  teaching 
endurance. 

Leverrier  predicted  and  located  Neptune,  with  its  orbit  of 
165  years,  because  he  believed  in  gravitation.  And  faith  is  no 
more  audacious,  is  just  as  exact,  as  scientific,  when  it  trusts  His 
consistent  goodness  whom  all  events  obey  as  firmly  as  the 
battalions  of  the  stars  march  west. 

Science  is  Faith  plus  Investigation. 

Religion  is  Faith  plus  Service.  The  sciences  of  sense  or  of 
the  soul  are  both  compelled  to  use  the  same  implement.  It 
has  well  been  said  that  "  The  believer  in  the  unseen  atom  should 
be  the  last  to  ridicule  belief  in  the  unseen  God."  The  unseen 
is  at  once  the  problem  and  the  power  of  all  search. 

You  are  more  than  any  or  all  of  your  senses.  It  is  soul,  not 
sense,  that  quivers  and  exults,  moans  and  rejoices.  Your  senses 
are  but  postmen  handing  you  what  they  do  not  read, —  electric 
transmitters,  if  you  please,  but  only  mechanical.  Back  of  these 
personal  being  sits,  listening  as  blind  Milton  listened  while  his 
daughters  pronounced  to  him  the  Greek  they  did  not  com 
prehend.  Look  !  Yonder  is  Beethoven,  old  and  stone  deaf. 
He  weaves  passion,  pain  and  peace  into  strange  immortal  har 
monies.  He  forges  music  into  light.  He  is  rapt  as  a  Sibyl: 
but  the  voice  of  the  oracle  is  all  within.  He  can  not  hear  his 
own  harpsichord  !  His  soul  plays  on,  and  on,  shreds  of  the 
symphonies  of  Heaven,  and  he  endures  as  hearing  the  unheard. 

These  are  the  souls  that  open  their  windows  to  the  day. 
They  are  horizoned  by  beckoning  hands.  Strength  to  bear,  to 
meet  and  to  master  the  emergencies  of  life,  can  only  come 
from  the  guidance  of  God.  And  this  can  only  come  by  that 
choice  of  God  which  makes  Him  the  first  in  our  hearts.  De 
cision  wonderfully  clears  the  mind.  God  reveals  himself  to 
those  who  surrender  to  His  guardianship.  We  will  but  shift 
our  doubts  from  one  hand  to  the  other  so  long  as  we  forget 
that  in  everything  commitment  seals  conviction.  Self-will  shuts 


REVELATION  COMES  BY  COMMITMENT  123 

the  door  from  self-knowledge.  Sensualism  staggers  into  the 
arms  of  scoffing.  Mighty  faith  comes  only  to  mighty  devotion. 
None  can  teach  you  his  faith,  nor  give  it.  You  must  buy  for 
yourselves  and  pay  God's  price.  The  deepest  is  incommun 
icable. 

"  How  can  he  give  his  neighbor  the  real  ground, 
His  own  conviction  ?" 

It  is  as  one  who  being  but  a  bystander  perceives  only  the 
absurdity  of  a  telephone  dialog,  because  his  ear  does  not  catch 
the  responding  voice. 

When  Titus  took  Jerusalem  and  penetrated  to  the  Holy  of 
Holies  he  saw  —  nothing.  The  Shekinah  was  not  for  him.  We 
see  what  we  have  the  soul  to  see  —  no  more.  We  abide  in  the 
truth  in  so  far  as  there  is  truth  in  us.  But  belief  and  life  are 
something  more  than  showing  that  faith  toward  God  has 
rational  analogies.  The  certainty  that  vanquishes  objection  is 
not  argument  but  commitment.  The  blessing  of  Him  that 
dwelt  in  the  burning  bush  awaits  all  who  will  turn  aside  to  see. 
Self-giving  is  the  price  of  all  high  companionships.  Hastening 
into  the  sweet  fulfillments  or  the  terrible  surprises  of  the 
unseen,  (one,  or  the  other,  they  shall  be  to  us  each)  we  may  well 
quit  all  else  for  that  which  alone  has  "  the  power  of  the  world 
to  come." 

That  sense  of  the  security  of  righteousness,  of  the  stability 
of  God,  can  only  come  by  a  surrender  absolute  to  the  Father 
of  our  Spirits.  That  life  of  Moses  was  stupendous  with  strug 
gle,  danger,  dissappointment:  but  it  was  crowned  with  a  tes 
timony  which  was  also  autobiography.  "The  Eternal  God  is 
thy  refuge  and  underneath  are  the  everlasting  arms."  The 
shell  will  be  shattered  at  last  ! 

Wings  !  wings  ! 

To  touch  the  hem  of  the  veil  that  swings, 
As  moved  by  the  breath  of  God,  between 
The  world  of  sense  and  the  world  unseen; 
To  swoon  where  the  mystic  folds  divide, 
And  wake,  a  child,  on  the  other  side; 


124  SEEING  THE  UNSEEN 

To  wake  and  wonder  if  it  be  so, 
And  weep  for  joy  at  the  loss  of  wo; 
To  know  the  seeker  is  lost  and  found; 
To  find  Love's  being  but  not  his  bound; 
Oh  for  the  living  that  dying  brings  ! 
Wings!  wings! 

Gentlemen  of  the  Class  0/1893: 

You  will  not  ask  me  to  forget  that  you  are  the  first  to  whom 
it  is  my  privilege  to  say  these  syllables  of  parting.  I  remember 
it,  and  shall  always  remember  it. 

I  have  longed  to  say  or  to  suggest  a  quickening,  and  inspir 
ing  word  to  you, —  a  word  that  should  help  you  under  God 
toward  mastery,  first  of  yourselves  and  second  of  your  circum 
stances.  The  Spirit  of  your  Heavenly  Father,  the  Presence  of 
Him  who  loved  you  and  gave  Himself  for  you,  must  broaden 
and  deepen  my  incompetent  speech. 

And  yet  it  is  my  last  occasion  with  you  all.  Other  feet  shall 
tread  the  ways  of  our  dear  hilltop, —  others  shall  answer  the 
chapel  call:  but,  all  together,  I  can  never  pray  with  you  again, 
nor  talk  with  you  over  the  open  Bible.  And  for  some  of  us 
this  is  the  last.  Bear  then  with  one  more  loving  and  fervent 
exhortation.  In  the  name  of  our  good  College,  and  by  the 
memory  of  those  who  with  prayer  and  toil  dedicated  its  unseen 
future  to  the  God  of  wisdom;  in  the  name  of  those  graduate 
ranks  of  staunch  and  reverent  men  that  now  are  to  receive 
you  ;  in  the  name  of  those  who  have  taught  you  here  with  gen 
uine  solicitude  for  your  noblest  culture,  "seeking  not  yours 
but  you,"  than  whom  you  may  find  more  plausible  friends,  but 
none  sincerer; — nay,  by  your  own  responsibility  to  your  Saviour 
and  your  Judge; — I  charge  you,  be  men  of  second  sight  ! 
While  the  visionaries  who  fix  their  affections  on  this  unsubstan 
tial  pageant  of  the  senses  chide  you  with  absent-mindedness, 
look  you,  with  the  vision  of  the  seer,  on  into  the  world  of 
ultimate  realities.  Put  the  facts  of  the  soul  before  the  fancies 
of  the  senses. 


THE  ULTIMATE  VISION  12$ 

Educate  your  spirits'  vision  by  using  it.  Leave  both  the 
upstarts  who  make  little  of  life's  most  serious  and  unsilencable 
questions,  and  the  dastards  who  avoid  them.  Let  God  print 
upon  the  inner  wall  of  your  very  eyelids  these  words  —  "AS 
SEEING  THE  UNSEEN,"  and  when  sense  is  not  enough,  when  you 
curtain  your  eyes  for  that  swift  prayer  for  light  which  each  of 
you  must  sometime  pray,  when  all  is  dark  but  duty,  then  re 
member  the  Kingdom  of  the  invisible 

"  nor  bate  a  jot 

Of  heart  or  hope:  but  still  bear  up,  and  steer 
Right  onward." 

You  have  mistakes,  and  you  have  also  bright  successes 
behind  you:  but  neither  way  are  they  final.  You  may  offset 
the  mistakes.  You  must  surpass  the  successes.  To  answer 
the  time  that  with  a  bugle  call  challenges  constancy  of  soul 
and  the  heroisms  of  a  spiritual  philosophy,  you  must  hold  fast 
Him  who  today  is  so  near  to  you.  May  the  light  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  glory  of  God  shine  in  your  hearts  in  the  face 
of  Jesus  Christ  !  He  is  your  soul's  Lord,  your  Master,  your 
Captain,  your  Example,  your  Redeemer.  Oh,  seize  His  loving 
hand  !  He  will  stand  by  you  in  the  furnace  of  temptation,  in 
the  prison  of  afflictions,  in  the  solitude  of  responsibility.  You 
shall  come,  more  and  more  intimately,  to  know  Him,  and  more 
and  more  deeply  as  the  rough  years  move  shall  you  feel  that 
His  tender  promise  is  for  you,  "  Yet  a  little  while  and  ye  shall 
seeMe." 


fln&issotuble  Xife 

THE  BACCALAUREATE  SERMON 
TO  THE   GRADUATING  CLASS  OF  1894 
HAMILTON  COLLEGE,  SUNDAY,  JUNE  24, 


"  Not  after  the  law  of  a  carnal  commandment,  but  after  the  power 
of  an  endless  life'' — HEBREWS  7:16. 

IT  is  necessary  to  see  what  these  words  mean  in  this  connec 
tion,  and  from  that  force  to  proceed  toward  the  great  idea 
which  they  open,  and  which  the  local  application  illustrates. 

The  expression  stands  in  a  paragraph  whose  purpose  it  is  to 
show  the  supreme  priesthood  of  Jesus  Christ,  that  He  is  beyond 
and  above  the  Levitical  succession,  that  He  is  after  the  order 
of  that  great  king-priest  to  whom  even  Abraham  gave  tithes, 
accepting  his  blessing  as  of  a  better  than  himself; — that  Christ's 
priesthood,  single,  complete,  unchangable  —  is  the  fulfillment 
and  ideal,  which  no  high-priest  of  Israel  had  ever  attained  — 
offering  one  final  sacrifice,  without  infirmity  and  perfected  for- 
evermore. 

And  this  paragraph  (and  chapter),  which,  however  far  away 
it  may  seem  to  us,  came  close  to  the  daily  thinking  of  the 
Hebrews  who  first  read  it,  is  part  of  a  minute  and  patient,  and 
at  last  triumphant  and  rapturous,  argument,  to  show  the  devout 
Jews,  who  in  those  apostolic  days  had  accepted  Jesus  as  the 
true  Messiah,  that  all  that  they  had  loved  and  lived  in  of  rubric 
and  rite  was  not  now  despised  but  transcended; — that  they 
were  not  to  be  troubled  because  the  venerable  things  of  their 
past  were  changed;  for  they  were  fulfilled  not  destroyed. 

In  Christ,  all  which  they  had  held  so  intimate  as  the  vessel 
and  vehicle  of  a  precious  covenant  and  a  common  worship, 
was  not  only  made  good,  but  made  better. 


LAW  WORKS  IN  WHILE  LIFE  WORKS  OUT  127 

The  whole  letter  to  these  believing  Israelites  is  based  upon 
the  comparison  of  the  old  and  the  new.  Contrasts,  general 
and  special,  are  its  whole  structure.  It  is  ruled  by  antithesis 
and  argues  a  fortiori. 

This  our  text  is  an  expression  eminently  characteristic  of 
the  argument  into  which  it  enters.  Christ's  place  and  office  is 
not  carnal,  transient,  legal:  but  mighty,  quickening,  enduring. 

Put  compactly,  here  is  a  summary  and  a  confronting — the 
Old  against  the  New.  Law  on  the  one  side,  life  on  the  other. 
The  life  does  not  deny  the  law,  it  surpasses  it,  taking  a  higher 
outlook  and  a  wider  outreach.  Law  works  inward  from  with 
out.  Life  works  outward  from  within.  It  is  rim  versus  centre, 
—  exterior  restraint  versus  interior  constraint. 

The  word  'endless'  in  the  text,  is  much  more  exactly  ren 
dered,  as  in  the  margin,  by  the  word  indissoluble — a  life  then 
essentially  and  uninterruptedly  one  in  all  its  parts. 

The  old  dispensation  which  led  up  to  the  fulness  and  the 
fulfillment  in  Christ  is  set  forth  as  rudimentary  and  prelimin 
ary.  It  is  pedagogical.  It  is  mechanical  not  dynamic;  and 
so,  a  moment  later,  our  writer  says  "for  there  is  a  disannulling 
of  a  foregoing  commandment  because  of  its  weakness  and  un 
profitableness  (for  the  law  made  nothing  perfect),  and  a  bring 
ing  in  thereupon  of  a  better  hope,  thro  which  we  draw  nigh 
unto  God." 

The  thought  I  urge  is  that  this  contrast  between  the  tem 
porary  scope  of  that  special  commandment  and  the  boundless 
scope  of  that  Supreme  Life,  bases  upon  and  illustrates  a  gen 
eral  truth  of  high  importance.  The  contrast  is  representative 
of  the  permanent  conditions  that  divide  punctiliousness  from 
power,  the  narrowness  of  legality  from  the  abundance  of  life. 

In  all  the  things  which  we  are  saying  the  chief  point  is  this 
that  there  is  all  the  difference  between  the  artificiality  of  com 
mandment  and  the  spontaneity  of  life  that  there  is  between 
Aaron  and  Christ. 

The  law  of  all  commandment  is  the  law  of  criticism  and  re- 


128  THE    INDISSOLUBLE    LIFE 

pression,  the  power  of  all  life  is  the  law  of  appreciation  and 
expansion. 

The  destructive  opposes  the  constructive  because  it  is  per 
se  inhibitive  and  cannot  be  creative.  All  precepts  are  good  only 
as  they  lead  to  principles.  The  literal  rule  is  only  a  means  to 
the  ends  of  the  right  living. 

Law  measures  imperfection  —  life  alone  can  repair  and  re 
place.  Law  may  introduce  but  it  can  never  complete. 

The  Bible  is  not  only  a  history  but  it  also  gives  a  philosophy 
of  history  and  it  shows  the  degrees  by  which  carnal  rule  is  led 
on  to  spiritual  power.  The  whole  climate  of  Hebrews  is 
changed  from  that  of  Leviticus.  This  was  God's  way  —  always 
is  His  way.  While  at  first  life,  so  far  as  it  can  be,  is  stated  in 
the  terms  of  law,  at  last  law  is  to  be  transfigured  in  the  terms 
of  life. 

Painters  and  sculptors  know  rules  and  work  with  them:  but 
what  knowledge  of  their  rules  alone  could  make  a  Rubens  or 
Thorwaldsen  !  The  Idylls  of  the  King  are  grammar  plus  Ten 
nyson.  A  Lamia  is  prosody  plus  Keats  !  The  Gettysburg  speech 
was  history  plus  Lincoln  ! 

By  law  we  learn  to  avoid  death,  but  it  is  by  the  contact  of 
the  inspiration  of  a  superior  life  that  we  learn  to  live. 

And  these  two  dispensations  of  law  and  of  life  furnish  us 
with  two  realms,  an  upper  and  a  lower,  in  one  of  which  we 
must  all  dwell.  The  upper  includes  the  lower  —  life  is  not 
extra  legal,  but  super  legal.  He  who  denies  or  despises  law  has 
not  learned  it,  and  must,  if  he  would  ever  go  up,  go  down 
again  to  the  first  principles  and  rudiments  of  the  teaching  of 
Christ:  but  law  cannot  say  the  last  word.  For  instance,  mar 
riage  is  a  contract.  That  is  a  sorry  marriage  which  forgets  its 
contract, —  that  is  also  a  sorry  marriage  which  is  only  a  con 
tract.  Carnal  commandment  must  be  underneath,  but  it  must 
be  underneath, — the  "power  of  an  indissoluble  life." 

We  may  choose,  and  we  must,  whether  we  will  live  positively 
or  negatively.  I  mean  whether  we  shall  be  actively  or  passively 


HOW   TWO    EQUALS    TEN  I2g 

good.  Whether  we  shall  have  that  timid  and  hand-to-mouth  be 
havior  which  is  concerned  mainly  not  to  make  mistakes,  or  that 
vital  eagerness  which  is  more  concerned  to  avoid  making 
nothing  !  A  man  may  be  negatively  good,  in  the  sense  that  he 
does  no  mischief.  Such  an  one  idolizes  caution  until  it  becomes 
impotence.  His  keeping  of  law  is  as  if  one  for  fear  of  going 
wrong  were  to  lash  himself  to  the  sign-post  at  a  four-corners,  or 
as  if  a  soldier  were  to  save  his  powder  for  fear  his  gun  might 
burst,  or  as  if  a  sick  man  to  assure  himself  against  an  error  by 
the  pharmacist,  were  to  swallow  the  prescription. 

Keeping  law  means  more  than  eluding  penalty — he  is  still 
coarse  and  carnal  who  does  not  perceive  that  sin  and  the  con 
sent  thereto  is  the  thing  law  indicates,  that  seeing  it  in  its 
naked  abominableness,  the  soul  may  cry  out  for  His  help  who 
has  the  power  of  the  indissoluble  life — in  whom  "  the  law  of 
the  spirit  of  life  makes  free  from  the  law  of  sin  and  death." 

The  differentiation  of  Negative  from  Positive  goodness  may 
be  seen  in  noting  the  altitude  of  the  Siniatic  Law  in  contrast 
with  the  Teaching  on  the  Mount  —  desert  Arabia  and  fertile 
Galilee.  Here  we  get  right  at  the  idea.  The  two  ways  of  the 
one  God  :  but  one  introductory,  the  other  complete.  We  may 
not  refuse  Him  either  way,  and  we  must  be  sure  that  the  primer 
of  particular  command  is  mastered  —  it  cannot  be  skipped. 
Neither  is  it  the  end.  It  is  much  to  avoid  concrete  evil,  and 
so  the  ten  words  go  on —  "  Thou  shalt  not" — it  is  goodness  by 
by  exclusion  —  it  is  safe:  but  when  Christ  comes  to  translate 
precept  into  spirit,  he  gives  goodness  by  inclusion,  and  that  is 
strong.  He  "  Blesses"  the  humble,  suffering,  restrained,  eager 
for  right,  merciful,  pure,  pacific, —  in  other  words  He  chooses 
and  extols  the  life  that  begins  within.  Again  in  summing  the 
law  of  Moses  into  two  commandments,  He  made  active  love  to 
God  and  Man  the  whole  result.  Christ  states  goodness  ;  but 
in  a  new  way.  He  shows  how  ten  "  thou-shalt-nots  "  equal 
two  "thou-shalts."  Positive  goodness  is  less  verbal  and 
more  direct.  Life  advances  by  exchanging  negatives  for  affirm- 


130  THE   INDISSOLUBLE   LIFE 

atives.  By  mastering  rules  we  grow  into  relations  —  we  walk  in 
the  go-cart  that  we  may  walk  without  it.  When  the  mechani 
cal  has  become  the  natural  —  when  effort  has  become  spontan 
eity,  when  the  crudeness  of  intention  has  become  the  second- 
nature  of  intuition,  when  one  has  learned  to  absorb  the  princi- 
that  is  the  kernel  of  the  rule  —  then  the  elocutionist  has  become 
the  orator — the  disciple  the  apostle.  One  noble  conformance 
is  worth  eight  or  ten  avoidances.  Too  much  'searchingof  scrip 
ture'  is  a  search  for  vetos,  —  too  much  pruning  and  too  little 
mulching.  Doubtless  too  much  of  the  education  of  children 
says,  "  don't  "—  "  don't"—  instead  of  "  do"— do."  The  primary 
lesson,  so  long  as  it  is  needed  (but  no  longer)  must  be  to  turn 
from  error ;  but  to  proceed  in  right  is  the  path  of  life.  Pre 
occupation  is  a  strong  protection.  A  higher  interest  can  sup 
plant  a  lower.  When  a  child  can  be  made  to  laugh  it  is  already 
stopped  from  crying.  The  way  for  a  man  to  stop  being  stingy 
is  by  beginning  to  be  generous.  Presently  Scrooge  is  no  longer 
himself!  It  was  because  his  goodness  had  been  so  far  only 
negative  —  keeping  the  "  shalt-nots" — that  the  young  man, 
whom  Christ  invited  into  the  positive  and  eternal  life,  went 
away  sorrowful  !  Meaning  not  to  do  harm  is  much  less  than 
determining  to  do  good.  The  two  commandments  go  deeper 
than  the  ten  and  so  at  first  seem  harder  to  keep:  but  when 
drudgery  has  been  overruled  by  vitality  they  prove  easier  — 
there  is  all  the  difference  that  lies  between  a  balloon  and  a 
bird  —  inflation  and  wings. 

We  never  do  anything  right  well  until  we  do  it  unconsciously. 
To  be  too  much  aware  of  self  is  to  be  awkward,  or  a  least  arti 
ficial.  The  senses  are  to  be  "exercised  by  use"  until  they 
cease  to  do  ill  by  learning  to  do  well.  One  must  think  of  the 
target  not  of  the  arrow, —  of  the  bird  not  of  the  gun,  of  the 
listener  and  not  the  song,  of  the  soul  and  not  of  the  sermon. 
Medative  goodness  is  prim  and  timid  —  it  is  too  self-concerned 
to  dare  aggression.  It  guards  its  rear  instead  of  advancing  its 
front  —  it  adopts  the  tactics  of  McClellan  rather  than  of  Sheri- 


PATHOLOGICAL  PIETY  13! 

dan !  And  still  the  philosophy  of  making  the  provisional 
seem  to  be  the  permanent  treats  symptoms  instead  of  dealing 
positively  and  radically  with  causes.  Tonic  is  better  than  lan 
cet.  Build  up  the  system  and  the  disturber  quits.  Get  health 
in  and  sickness  goes  out.  Health  does  not  recollect  that  it 
has  a  body.  It  is  when  life  looses  its  hold  and  power  that  the 
patient  has  to  fall  back  upon  carnal  commandment.  A  great 
deal  of  our  religious  living  is  "at  a  dying  rate,"  or  at  least 
"  feeble  and  sickly,"  because  it  forgets  that  the  way  to  fight 
asphyxia  is  not  by  vacuum  but  by  quantities  of  fresh  air. 
There  is  a  style  of  piety  that  is  mainly  pathological, —  speak 
ing  with  the  accent  of  invalidism  it  measures  mournful  doses  and 
adjusts  hot-water  bags.  The  power  of  the  Living-One  still 
summons  chronic  debility  and  selfish  neurasthenia  out  of  it 
self —  as  of  old  —  "Arise,  take  up  thy  bed,  and  walk"\ 

It  is  the  expulsive  and  propulsive  dynamic  of  what  is  posi 
tive  that  "  gives  power  to  the  feeble  and  to  them  that  have  no 
might  increases  strength."  The  locomotive  gets  up  steam  by 
going, —  the  more  speed  the  more  draft.  To  warm  a  room 
one  must  close  the  window:  but  he  must  also  light  the  fire  — 
to  raise  the  temperature  the  stove  is  far  more  important  than 
the  thermometer.  To  get  the  darkness  out  of  the  room  one 
does  not  use  a  broom  but  a  lamp.  Enter  truth,  exeunt  lies. 
Enter  liberty,  exit  bondage.  Power  is  in  the  ratio  of  displace 
ment.  "  Fire  makes  room  for  itself,"  say  the  Japanese.  While 
dupes  consent,  tyrants  rule  them, —  not  longer.  The  Czar  will 
take  a  walk  to  Siberia  just  so  soon  as  freedom  shatters  rotten 
beaurocracy.  There  will  be  a  different  Russia  when  there  are 
different  Russians. 

America  will  have  better  cities  just  so  soon  as  it  has  better 
citizens.  There  will  be  a  morally  "greater  New  York"  when 
there  are  greater  New  Yorkers  —  no  earlier.  Bad  men  can 
be  kept  out  only  by  putting  good  men  in.  That  spasmodic 
reform  which  stops  half-way  is  illustrated  in  Christ's  parable 
of  the  untenanted  house — it  was  cleansed:  but  it  was  suffered 
to  stand  empty  and  so  became  again  the  kennel  of  demons. 


132  THE   INDISSOLUBLE  LIFE 

Not  doing  is  un-doing.  It  is  content  with  negations  of 
wrong,  in  place  of  zeal  for  the  affirmations  of  good,  that  makes 
so  big  and  so  fatal  the  bulk  of  sins  of  omission.  "  Ye  did  it 
not"  may  be  the  irrevocable  sentence  !  He  who  is  either  so 
irresolute  or  so  proud  as  never  to  risk  a  mistake  will  never  do 
anything.  The  talent  wrapped  in  a  napkin  and  hid  in  a  hole, 
hurt  no  one:  but  it  helped no  one.  No  servant  will  enter  into 
the  joy  of  the  Lord  by  proving  that  he  "never  did  much  ill." 

The  really  upright  life  must  be  downright, —  willing  to 
blunders  —  to  stumble  forward — to  fall  up.  Real  virtue  is 
active — true  goodness  is  overt.  It  does  and  moves.  It  is 
measured  by  its  momentum.  A  good  citizen  is  not  merely  one 
who  keeps  out  of  the  criminal  court.  It  is  of  course  some 
thing  not  to  go  to  state's  prison:  but  that  cannot  be  the  sum 
of  patriotism.  I  certainly  hope  that  none  of  you  will  ever  be 
hung ! —  but  I  really  hope  more  for  you  than  that !  A  Christ 
ian  is  other  than  merely  one  who  does  not  flagrantly  violate 
the  moral  law.  All  the  sanctions  of  respectability,  adinfinitum 
or  ad  nauseam,  cannot  make  a  great  life  —  a  life  of  perpetuity. . 
Abstinences  from  evil  are  worth  while,  so  far:  but  it  is  not 
the  ill  we  let  go  but  the  good  we  hold  fast  that  'sizes'  us. 

The  whole  Jewish  system  established  at  once  the  value  and 
the  weakness  of  commandment.  It  was  indispensable  as  an 
introduction,  altogether  deficient  as  a  conclusion.  It  was  the 
preceptor  of  adolescence  —  a  "tutor  until  the  time  appointed." 
The  grandeur  of  Judaism  was  its  original  advance  into  precept; 
its  decadence  and  stultification  was  in  its  refusal  to  see  how 
law  was  intended  to  lead  on  to  and  into  life.  Judaism  came  to 
worship  carnal  rule  and  so  at  last  rejected  the  vital  and  per 
petual  newness  of  its  great  Consummator.  It  learned  the  letter 
of  exclusive  goodness  and  refused  the  Spirit  of  inclusive  good 
ness.  It  put  the  trellis  for  the  vine.  Thus  it  elevated  the 
scribe  above  the  prophet  and  dwindled  to  a  retrospect.  The 
Jews  of  our  Saviour's  time  had  become  high-protectionists  in 
jre.ligion,  and  by  their  very  privileges  denied  their  stewardship, 


A   LOW-TIDE    PROGRESS  133 

ignoring  or  hating  all  non-Jews.  The  Son  of  Man  announcing 
the  ripeness  of  a  changed  order  —  breaking  down  the  parti 
tions  of  severalty  —  declaring  that  the  special  could  only  be 
fulfilled  in  the  universal  —  arraying  the  positive  against  the  neg 
ative  life  —  endured  the  inevitable  contradiction  of  parchment 
and  phylactery  and  signed  the  charter  and  covenant  of  eman 
cipation  with  the  sign  of  the  cross  !  The  monastic  spirit  re 
peated  the  mistake  of  moribund  Judaism  and  in  turn  its  carnal 
and  perfunctory  system  went  down  before  the  power  of  whole- 
ness-of-life.  For  it  is  the  way  of  life  to  transcend  circumstance 
not  by  caution,  but  by  character — not  merely  to  quote  a  maxim 
and  do  a  task,  but  to  inspire  an  ideal  and  incarnate  its  joy. 
This  is  the  freedom  of  the  soul  which  perceives  the  spiritual 
goal  of  instances  and  rubric,  and  (never  disdaining  their  con 
crete  value)  holds  them  always  as  non-finalities.  So  does  the 
flood-tide  first  follow,  then  fill,  an'd  then  with  its  broad  sway 
cover  the  little  indentations  of  its  estuaries.  Then  the  boats 
go  wide  and  free  that  at  low-ebb  must  strictly  heed  the  channel. 

Ramadan,  or  Lent,  or  Sunday, —  think  how  these  are  kept 
merely  by  abstention,  instead  of  by  a  typical  and  sacramental 
substitution  of  works  of  love  and  mercy.  If  the  Lord's  day 
were  once  used  by  the  alleged  followers  of  Christ  in  His  way — 
in  helping  the  hungry  and  heartening  the  distressed,  even  if 
sleek  congregations  upon  cushioned  seats  sang  fewer  lyrics  in 
good-natured  praise  of  the  cross,  had  less  entertainment  in  the 
way  of  '  sacred  rhetoric  '  with  all  the  week  for  anti-climax  — 
that  were  to  keep  the  day  holy.  Long  ago  Isaiah  described 
the  fast  God  has  chosen  (58:5.) 

The  way  we  keep  the  4th  Commandment  is  a  specimen  of 
our  conception  of  the  others — not  doing,  this  and  that.  It 
irritates  our  self-complacency  to  be  told  that  clean  linen  and 
general  inertia  are  only  negative  virtues  and  that  "  it  is  lawful 
[the  fulness  of  the  law]  to  do  good  on  the  Sabbath."  Most  of  us 
us  are  semi-Jewish  yet  in  our  Christianity  !  It  is  vain  for  us  to 
hope  to  understand  Christ,  until  we  too  "  go  about  doing  good." 


134  THE   INDISSOLUBLE   LIFE 

He  is  the  pattern  of  a  strong  affirmative,  constructive  life.  The 
old  priesthood  offered  something  else:  but  He  offered  Him 
self.  That  offering  of  self  is  our  only  availing  answer  to  His 
call  who  said  that  the  way  to  find  life  is  to  lose  it.  He  does 
not  now  preach  economy:  but  great  investment !  It  is  the 
engineer's  business  to  burn  coal,  not  to  save  it ! 

This  whole  and  indissoluble  Book  is  a  book  of  positive  and 
so  of  profound  theories  of  life.  It  offers  to  supplant  the  vague 
ness  and  barrenness  of  mere  negations  by  invincible  realities. 
It  gives  us  law  as  a  base  of  operations.  It  teaches  us  to  answer 
the  literature  of  doubt  and  denial  by  the  power  of  Christ.  We 
are  to  put  off  the  old  man  by  putting  on  the  new,  to  cease  to  do 
evil  by  learning  to  do  well.  Might  of  spirit  does  not  come  by 
carnal  measurements.  Doubt  dies  by  deed.  It  is  answered  by 
fidelities,  not  disputations.  It  is  not  what  we  controvert  but 
what  we  demonstrate  that  tells.  No  party  and  no  person  is 
long  tolerated  whose  only  outfit  is  a  grievance.  "  Non  credo" 
makes  few  converts.  Trust  alone  can  vanquish  distrust  and 
"overcome  evil  with  good."  The  nature  and  distinction  of  all 
conquering  greatness  is  in  its  displacement  of  shabby  apolo- 
gizings  by  daring  aggressions.  It  is  in  this  direction  that 
Phillips  Brooks  so  wisely  noted  —  "how  many  more  resolutions 
to  do  right  are  kept  than  resolutions  not  to  do  wrong."  Better 
be  strenuous  for  one  truth  than  strenuous  against  ten  lies  !  In 
chess  or  in  war  defensive  tactics  are  to  postpone  defeat,  offen 
sive  tactics  to  win  the  game. 

When  in  Rio  harbor  our  Admiral  manned  the  guns  of  the 
Detroit  and  said  /  will  act — he  defended  American  non-com 
batants  and  British  too.  It  was  life,  and  all  Saxons  said  'Amen!' 
Do  your  duty  and  let  risks  take  care  of  themselves.  To  live  is 
much  more  than  merely  not  to  die! 

"  HERE    LIES   ONE   WHO   NEVER   DID    MUCH   HARM." 

Who  wants  that  for  his  epitaph?  But  if  mortuary  marble 
were  less  diplomatic  how  often  this  negative  legend  would 
summarize  a  nominal  life  !  Webster  on  his  last  couch  said  "  I 


STORMING  OF  FORT  INFERNAL  135 

still  live."  Someone  attempted  to  repeat  that,  and  got  so  near 
as  to  make  it,  "  I  airit  dead  yet." — There  is  a  difference,  and  it 
illustrates  our  present  contention. 

Abandon  is  the  dynamic  before  which  prudentialities  shrivel. 
Personal  will  alone  can  rouse  will:  for,  "every  seed  after  its  own 
kind." 

At  the  siege  of  Port  Hudson,  in  May  '63,  when  the  invest 
ment  had  been  made  complete  and  the  lines  were  almost  with 
in  talking  distance,  the  rebels  had  at  one  point  erected  a  pow 
erful  redoubt,  crowned  with  rifled  cannon  and  crowded  with 
sharpshooters.  The  Federal  soldiers  dubbed  the  point  Fort 
Infernal.  It  silenced  the  works  in  its  immediate  front  and 
made  the  trenches  deadly.  Its  vomit  of  iron  seemed  as  if  set 
with  a  hair-trigger.  On  the  evening  of  July  6th  General  Banks 
sent  for  the  officers  commanding  the  opposed  Union  front.  He 
sharply  criticised  the  apparent  inaction  of  the  assailants,  and 
to  the  reply  of  Col.  Berrier  that  half  his  guns  were  dismounted 
and  the  redoubt  impregnable,  the  General  gave  orders  that  at 
nine  the  next  morning,  at  whatever  cost  of  life,  the  battery 
should  be  stormed.  "  It  shall  be  done  "  replied  the  Colonel, 
and,  his  bronzed  cheek  burning  under  the  implied  rebuke,  he 
saluted  and  turned  away  to  consult  with  his  subordinate 
officers.  With  one  voice  they  pronounced  the  attack  hopeless 
and  declared  that  the  men  would  not  obey  a  command  that 
meant  the  annihilation  of  their  columns.  Sternly  the  Colonel 
answered  them  all  —  "Gentlemen,  the  attack  will  be  made  if  I 
make  it  alone  !  " 

At  half-past  eight,  of  the  /th  of  July,  the  troops,  mustered 
close  in  the  trenches,  stood  gloomy  and  unresponsive  to  the 
words  of  their  commander  as  with  a  few  words  to  each  com 
pany  he  inspected  the  line.  Watch  in  hand,  he  waited  the 
moment,  and  as  the  finger  marked  nine,  with  sword  in  hand  he 
leaped  to  the  parapet.  "  Forward!  "  A  tremor  fluttered  down 
the  front:  but  they  remained  irresolute  —  and  there  their  Col 
onel,  the  lead  hornets  swarming  about  him.  "  FORWARD  ! 


136  THE    INDISSOLUBLE  LIFE 

CHARGE  !  "  Heads  went  down — dark  shame  flushed  the  faces, 
yet  still  they  stayed.  "  Cover  your  carcasses,  cowards  —  7  will 
storm  the  battery  !  "  About  face  and  alone  !  Twelve  steps, 
and  over  the  breastworks  went  color-sergeant  Whittaker,  and 
there  were  two  !  A  sword  and  a  flag — and  the  cannon  goug 
ing  the  earth  about  them  to  left,  to  right  —  the  sleet  of  death 
pitiless  !  Madmen,  shoulder  to  shoulder  !  The  fire  slackened, 
heads  peered  over  parapet  and  bastion  —  gazing  at  the  two. 
Then  the  significance  of  it  dawned  on  the  beholders,  and  alike 
from  Unionists  and  Rebels  there  went  up  a  wild  Saxon  cheer. 
It  was  life  !  Out  of  the  trenches  and  over  the  earthworks 
came  the  regiment  —  wild  with  the  passion  to  do  —  tho  doing 
were  dying.  On  and  over  and  in!  Steel  to  steel  —  soul  to 
soul — they  would  have  stormed  Hell  ! 

No  one  remembered  how,  but  it  was  done,  and  as  the  grimy 
remnant  gathered  about  the  shredded  flag  struck  into  the  par 
apet,  they  heard  the  faint  voice  of  their  wounded  Colonel  — 
"  Well,  boys,  you  came,  after  all ! " 

Fort  Infernal  had  fallen  and  with  it  Port  Hudson. 

Men  of  the  Class  of  94: 

You  stand  here  today  with  sealed  orders  as  to  where  you  are 
to  live  and  labor:  but  the  whereby  and  whereunto,  this  text,  if 
you  will  take  it  to  heart,  makes  an  open  secret.  "Kara  Swa/uv 
£a)?js  cucaTaAvrov"  —  Power,  Life,  Indivisibility  —  what  words  are 
these  to  heed  as  you  go.  Carrying  love  in  your  hearts  for  the 
dear  Mother  who  has  done  more  for  you  than  you  now  can 
guess,  may  you  vindicate  and  honor  her  by  your  positive  deeds. 
Acta  non  verba!  In  the  ever-growing  library  of  memory  cher 
ish  these  four  volumes,  today  so  near  the  last  paragraph,  and 
of  which  the  whole  sum  is  this — "Quit  you  like  men,  be  strong 
in  the  Lord  and  in  the  power  of  of  His  might."  "If  your  vir 
tues  do  not  go  forth  of  you,  'twere  all  alike  as  if  you  had  them 
not."  Submit  your  souls  to  the  influences  of  Christ;  for  that 
will  evoke  your  latent  capabilities  as  the  miracle  of  irrigation 
makes  the  western  desert  lands  into  gardens. 


SINGLEMINDEDNESS  137 

Fidelity  to  your  inmost  natures  will  add  your  lives  to  that 
phalanx  of  light  which  is  turning  the  battle  to  the  gates. 

The  i6-year-old  boy  who  against  a  field  of  400  expert  men 
won  recently  a  great  bicycle  race,  said  what  is  worth  remem 
bering.  He  was  eagerly  questioned  in  regard  to  the  way  he 
managed  to  do  it.  "I  took  the  best  gait  that  I  thought  I  could 
maintain  for  the  twenty  miles,  and  kept  it  up,  just  the  same 
from  start  to  finish.  I  did  not  look  at  any  one,  but  just  kept 
my  eyes  on  the  ground  ahead  of  my  wheel,  and  kept  up  my 
gait."  There  were  famous  "sprinters"  competing  with  him, 
but  he  did  not  "sprint."  The  others  were  watching  others  to 
see  what  they  were  doing,  but  he  watched  nobody  but  himself. 

That  is  the  moral  route  by  which  souls  arrive  at  the  goal ! 

God  free  you  from  sordid  seductions,  from  base  appetite, 
from  the  paltry  ambitions  of  the  many,  and  number  you  all 
with  the  glorious  few  who  refuse  the  sham  goodness  of  con 
ventionality  for  the  tasks  and  the  triumphs  of  the  more  excel 
lent  way. 

God  fulfil  for  you  every  desire  of  goodness  and  every  work 
of  faith  with  power. 

May  your  souls  realize  themselves  in  service  — 
"  Like  perfect  music  unto  perfect  words  " 
and  so  may  you  attain  the  crown  of  life !     Amen. 


IRa&tcal  anb  Conservative 

THE  BACCALAUREATE  SERMON 
TO  THE   GRADUATING  CLASS  OF 
HAMILTON  COLLEGE,  SUNDAY  JUNE  23,  1895 


"  Every  scribe  who  hath  been  -made  a  disciple  unto  the  kingdom 
of  heaven,  is  like  unto  a  man  that  is  a  householder,  which  bringeth 
forth  out  of  his  treasure  things  new  and  old." — Matthew  13:52. 

RIGHT  upon  the  utterance  of  several  most  suggestive  para 
bles,  Christ  turned  to  his  disciples,  asking  them — "  Have  ye 
understood  ?  "  And  at  once,  to  that  important  question,  he 
added  the  words  of  our  text,  illustrating  how  much  he  meant 
by  really  understanding.  Therein  He  described  the  width  and 
abundance  of  His  own  instructions,  and  so  He  shows  what,  in 
his  relative  degree,  every  teacher  must  be. 

He  would  make  all  disciples  to  learn  to  be  such  teachers, 
bringing  them,  by  expectant  and  eager  attention  to  the  sweep 
and  search  of  His  word  and  work,  into  the  open  secret  of  His 
method  and  His  purpose.  He  teaches,  as  He  also  rules,  by  the 
way  both  of  continuity  and  of  increase.  To  Him  and  in  Him, 
time  and  its  tenses  are  not  fragmentary;  but  truth  is  a  unit, 
both  constant  and  augmenting. 

All  that  this  keeper  of  His  house  brings  forth,  (or,  rather, 
throws  forth) — swiftly,  determinedly — out  of  his  abundant 
thesaurus,  or  treasury,  is  precious.  There  is  no  rubbish  there — 
no  moth-fret  nor  rust.  Thence  we  are  to  accept  and  adopt 
"  things  new  and  old."  What  we  are  now  to  affirm  and  urge  is 
the  oldness  and  the  newness  of  the  teachings  of  Christ.  He 
certainly  made  good  this  declaration  in  both  argument  and 
accent. 


VARIETY    IN    UNITY  !3g 

The  words  of  this  Instructor  of  Time  were  as  emphatic  and 
sedate  as  Mt.  Horeb,  and  yet  as  fresh  as  the  balsamed  winds 
that  blew  out  of  Gilead  to  ruffle  the  mirror  of  the  Galilee.  His 
utterances  were  as  old  as  the  light,  and  yet  as  new  as  the 
morning. 

So  it  came  that  they  who  had  found  the  soul  and  substance 
of  elder  revelation,  welcomed  gladly  His  authentic  message, 
and  that  unsophisticated  every-day  men  trusted  Him  as  an 
authoritative  interpreter  of  those  primary  problems  which  lie 
near  to  plain  hearts.  So  also  those  who  could  only  value 
quotation  marks,  who  had  no  insight  of  that  which  lay  back  of 
ceremonial  and  rubric,  who  idolized  idioms  and  had  lost  the 
idea,  failed  to  comprehend  this  Scribe  of  the  Spirit  and  the 
divine  truth-kingdom  He  announced,  and  had  Him  killed. 

Whoever,  then,  (and  now  it  is  the  same)  held  to  Christ 
Himself,  and  pressed  past  the  objections  of  unfaith  and  semi- 
faith,  found  Him  deeper  than  the  oldest  words  of  men,  brighter 
than  the  newest. 

The  whole  story  of  that  Wisdom  Incarnate  establishes  our 
text,  as  the  chord  in  which  His  testimony  was  set. 

And  I  go  on  to  say  that  our  Lord's  illumination  of  "  things 
new  and  old  "  was  not  an  exception,  but  rather  a  specimen  of 
all  the  normal  and  constant  self-manifestation  of  God. 

The  material  of  truth  is  changeless,  its  form  is  never  twice 
alike.  Christ  here  asserts  its  variety  in  unity.  One  treasury, 
many  things.  Let  us  open  wide  our  minds  to  the  lesson.  This 
heavenly  and  kingly  Scribe  is  wiser  than  our  half-sight,  and 
quietly  rebukes  that  attitude  of  mind  which  looks  only  in  one 
direction,  whether  that  be  backward  or  forward.  For  he  who 
but  considers  the  east,  equally  with  him  who  but  considers  the 
west,  ignores  the  half  of  a  complete  day. 

Christ  summons  us  to  live  under  a  whole  sky.  In  Him  and 
in  His  words,  and  in  those  (and  their  words)  who  best  know 
and  most  resemble  Him,  the  past  and  the  present  are  held  not 
in  opposition  but  in  sympathy. 


140  RADICAL   AND    CONSERVATIVE 

The  partial  way  is  the  easier  and  the  feebler.  The  sturdier 
and  more  genial  way  loves  to  discover  the  combination,  the 
union,  the  vital  identity  of  what  has  been  done  with  what  is 
doing  now.  For,  just  as  every  June  is  both  a  result  and  a 
cause,  the  child  of  an  elder  and  the  mother  of  a  junior  sum 
mer,  so,  in  all  the  spirit's  life,  the  past  and  the  present  are  felt 
to  be  blended  in  Him  who  has  "neither  beginning  of  days  nor 
end  of  years." 

Man,  in  his  obstinate  fallibility,  easily  lapses  into  one  or  the 
other  of  two  equally  incomplete  frames  of  mind — living,  on 
the  one  hand,  only  in  what  is  old,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  only 
in  what  is  new. 

Each  mistake  is  a  mistake  not  only  of  onesidedness  but  of 
outsidedness  —  the  mistake  of  identifying  the  eternal  substance 
with  its  transient  appearance,  of  prefering  accident  above 
essence,  fashion  above  fact. 

These  opposite  moods  are  of  course  largely  temperamental: 
but  it  is  the  business  of  a  rational  soul  to  overcome  predisposi 
tion  and  bias,  and  to  get  rid  of  its  stiffneckedness  by  realizing 
that  man's  head  is  not  set  on  a  pedestal  but  on  a  pivot ! 

Some  minds  are  eager  for  any  change,  and  some  are  always 
angry  at  any.  The  one  is  born  senile,  and  the  other  dies 
puerile. 

Each  of  these  classes  has  its  own  dislike,  whether  muttered 
or  mumb,  to  the  under-thought,  the  wide  comprehension  of 
our  text.  One  secretly  wishes  that  Christ  had  spoken  only 
"things  old,"  and  the  other  would  have,  even  from  Him,  only 
"things  new."  One  frustrates  truth  of  its  eternal  summits  of 
oxygen  and  outlook,  the  other  would  ignore  its  permanent 
foundations  and  base.  But  every  mountain  that  has  heights 
has  also  depths.  Altitude  measures  both  ways. 

The  man  who  loves  the  old  only  as  old,  and  the  man  who 
seeks  the  new  only  as  new  —  each  thinks  with  but  one  brain- 
lobe.  He  whose  discipline  is  unto  the  wide  kingdom  of 
Heaven  loves  what  is  true  —  loves  it  whether  it  seems  old  or 
new  —  loves  it  because  it  is  always  both  old  and  new. 


ONE    TIME   TO    BE   TESTED    BY   ALL   TIMES  141 

There  are  two  words  (much  misapplied  as  I  hope  to  show) 
which  in  current  and  somewhat  careless  fashion  are  made  the 
class-titles  of  these  alternative  habits  of  mind, —  the  words 
Radical  and  Conservative.  Nothing  can  be  more  deplorable 
than  to  fall  entirely  under  either  category,  whichsoever  it  be; 
for  either,  by  itself,  is  segmental. 

Conservative  means  preservative.  Under  this  title  range  all 
those  who  dread  and  repel  change,  who  are  angered  by  the  un 
expected  and  tormented  by  agitation.  The  conservative  hoards 
decisions  and  loves  only  what  is  gradual  and  guaranteed.  Cus 
tom  and  continuity  are  his  comfort  and  he  is  apt  to  look  with 
a  stony  face  upon  the  unconventional.  An  ounce  of  caution  is 
worth  to  him  a  ton  of  daring.  Sudden  and  precipitous  men 
who  would  crowd  all  tenses  into  the  present,  who  delight  in 
speed  and  scorn  the  steam-guage  and  the  escape-valve,  who 
(as  Lowell  said)  "must  see  the  world  saved  before  night,"  are 
his  abhorrence,  and  they  in  turn  renounce  him  as  impossible, 
coagulated,  obsolescent! 

But  whether  the  Conservative  is  a  dullard  and  dotard,  or  a 
seer  and  safeguard,  rests  upon  his  particular  scope  and  motive. 
For  to  test  one  time  by  all  times,  to  resist  swiftness  in  the  in 
terest  of  strength,  to  weigh  secure  axioms  against  rash  impor 
tunities —  this  is  wisdom,  and  he  who  has  it  saves  the  future, 
postponing  the  unripe  today  that  he  may  secure  the  bountiful 
tomorrow.  The  true  Conservative  declines  both  green  apples 
and  rotten.  The  false  Conservative,  if  he  marches  at  all, 
marches  backward.  He  is  crabbed  and  hard-shelled.  He  is 
an  antiquary  and  mediaevalist.  He  adores  inertia  and  is  an  in 
corrigible  temporizer.  "His  strength  is  to  sit  still."  His  forte 
is  negation.  He  worships  in  a  pantheon  of  mummies.  To  him 
the  present  is  but  a  pile  of  exhausted  slag,  and  history  is  not  a 
nursery  but  a  graveyard.  He  likes  his  manna  pickled.  Ex 
perience  is  sacred  to  him  as  a  means  wherewith  to  rebuke 
hope.  He  can  only  accept  the  prophecies  that  were  long  ago 
fulfilled  and  the  miracles  that  are  memories.  The  best  days 
are  past.  He  only  believes  memoriter, 


142  RADICAL    AND    CONSERVATIVE 

The  Radical  is  the  man  who  would  go  to  the  root.  The  tops 
of  things  do  not  satisfy  him.  His  watchword  is  "  Thoro"  He 
is  assertive,  aggressive,  intense,  sweeping.  He  nails  a  besom 
at  his  mast-head.  He  does  not  add  precedents,  and  he  for 
swears  formulas.  He  prefers  any  innovation  rather  than  to 
endure  mortmain.  Yeast  is  his  element.  He  rides  bare-backed 
revolution.  He  wields  the  iconoclast's  hammer,  and  loves  axe 
and  plow  and  the  rubbish-searching  flame. 

Routine  men,  who  like  yellow  parchment  and  pale  rubrica- 
tions  and  chancery-tape  and  all  that  is  canonical,  resent  the 
radical  as  an  intruder,  an  impracticable,  and  a  fanatic. 

But  whether  the  Radical  is  a  sheer  destroyer  or  a  sublime 
reformer  depends  upon  whether  he  too  is  farsighted  or  near 
sighted,  upon  whether  mere  destruction  or  reconstruction  is 
his  ultimate  and  goal.  There  is  a  crude  and  cruel  temper 
whose  whole  passion  it  is,  not  to  extend  boundaries  but  to 
trample  them,  whose  essence  is  lawless  and  anarchic.  Upon 
whatever  plane  of  theory  or  affairs,  he  who  thinks  hard  with 
out  thinking  far,  or  moves  fast  but  not  firmly,  is  a  danger  and 
may  become  a  disaster. 

No  classification  of  men  is  ever  absolutely  accurate.  No 
man  falls  exactly  within  a  single  catagory.  But  the  instance 
of  the  partisan  who  disdains  experience,  who  renounces  the 
sequence  of  causes,  whose  prospect  scorns  retrospect,  who 
mistakes  a  fancy  for  a  revelation,  who  thinks  his  dividend  can 
decree  its  own  divisor,  who  falls  with  hysterical  rapture  upon 
the  neck  of  "each  new-hatched,  unfledged  comrade," — he  will 
occur  under  a  hundred  names.  He  has  his  use  as  a  scourge 
and  a  warning  —  the  false  Radical,  who  does  not  go  to  the  root. 

Of  the  radicalism  of  wild  excess,  clashing  with  the  conserv 
atism  of  stupid  lethargy,  the  France  of  just  a  century  ago  was 
a  sufficient  instance, —  the  collision  of  two  collossal  madnesses  ! 

This  then  remains;  that  either  type  of  opinion  and  method, 
prevailing  in  isolation,  emphasizes  one,  and  but  one,  of  the 
two  necessary  and  complementary  phases  of  a  full  human  ac- 


THE   SCARCE   AMBIDEXTROUS    MAN  143 

tivity.  Man  is  to  look  both  fore  and  aft.  The  best  guns  are 
turreted  and  command  both  bow  and  stern.  One  can  wisely 
neglect  neither  the  synthesis  that  groups  time  into  a  unity — 
"broadening  down  from  precedent  to  precedent,"  nor  the  anal 
ysis  which  subjects  all  phrases,  customs,  statutes,  constitutions, 
to  reinvestigation. 

The  wild  Radical  puts  out  his  torch  at  midnight,  the  blind 
Conservative  shakes  his  torch  in  the  face  of  the  noon;  but  he 
who  has  disclaimed  infallibility  goes,  at  whatever  hour,  by  the 
best  light  that  hour  offers.  There  they  sit,  in  senates,  or  on 
thrones,  robed  in  the  livery  of  officialism,  or  brain-bound  with 
hoops  of  gem-set  gold,  waiting,  or  muttering  "nothing  can  be 
done,"  the  "everlasting  No,"  the  non  possumus  of  imbecility. 
History  puts  them  into  its  museums  of  fossils.  George  III 
may  stand  for  a  specimen,  or  you  may  take  the  impotent  in 
decision  of  James  Buchanan.  And  there  too  they  rush  frantic, 
screaming  that  everything  must  be  done  at  once  !  Your 
Wilkes's,  Dantons,  Garrisons. 

But  now  and  then  an  epoch  advances  which  combines  both 
moods.  It  becomes  crystalline  and  effective.  The  scarce  and 
ambidextrous  man  stands  up  to  say,  "Something  can  be  done 
now,  if  not  everything,  and  what  can  be  done,  shall  be."  With 
this  man  comes  an  era.  In  him  "the  old  order  changeth,"  as 
the  dried  leaves  fall  before  the  outpushing  buds,  while  their 
tree  lives  and  expands.  Seeing  both  possible  benefits  and  pos 
sible  harms,  reckoning  with  both  the  obstacles  and  the  helps, 
enduring  or  daring,  but  never  shirking,  this  man  waits  with  a 
patience  that  is  not  delay,  and  works  with  a  sureness  that  is 
not  haste.  The  really  large  one  lays  the  axe  to  the  root  that 
he  may  conserve  the  truths  blighted  under  the  rank  shadow  of 
a  lie,  and  he  also  holds  back  impetuosity,  "lest  with  the  tares 
it  pull  up  the  wheat  also." 

In  writing  upon  the  Long  Parliament,  (1:98),  Macaulay  has 
a  terse  and  balanced  paragraph  upon  this  matter,  and  he  con 
cludes — "In  the  sentiments  of  both  classes  there  is  something 


144  RADICAL    AND    CONSERVATIVE 

to  approve.  But  of  both  the  best  specimens  will  be  found  not 
far  from  the  common  frontier." 

Truly  it  is  not  in  the  frigid  zone  nor  the  torrid,  but  in  the 
temperate  that  the  greatest  events  issue  and  endure.  But,  that 
being  said,  it  is  not  for  dawdlers  and  sybarites  to  estimate  the 
stern  resolve  of  an  Elijah  fronting  Jezebel,  of  Elizabeth's  son 
denouncing  Herodias,  of  Savonarola,  and  Beza,  and  Knox,  and 
Samuel  Adams,  and  Phillips,  and  Sumner.  Time-servers  can 
not  realize  the  indelible  influences  of  the  commonwealth  of 
Cromwell,  nor  can  tuft-hunters  perceive  that  he  was  England's 
truest  king.  When  such  deputy-sheriffs  of  Almighty  God  utter 
their  summons  let  men  listen.  "So  shall  He  startle  many 
nations."  "  Kings  shall  shut  their  mouths  at  Him."  These 
radicals  are  conservative  too,  tho  in  a  way  no  small  calipers 
can  measure.  But  in  a  range  far  above  these  stand  the  calm, 
comprehensive  souls,  who  know  how  to  work  while  waiting 
and  wait  while  working,  and  their  appealing  eyes,  look  past 
the  hour  and  the  event,  for  the  verdict  of  God.  Plato  and 
Tacitus  and  the  nameless  writer  of  the  book  of  Job  stand  there. 
There  are  Angelo  and  Kepler.  There,  silent,  tender,  time- 
abiding,  upon  a  pedestal  cut  from  the  core  of  things,  which  no 
man  manufactured  and  no  man  can  mar,  Lincoln  stands. 

The  spherical  man  is  he  who  beyond  the  symbol  seeks  the 
essence, —  who  will  have  that,  cost  how  it  may,  and  will  at  any 
cost  keep  it. 

Supreme  herein  is  He  upon  whose  lips  absolute  righteous 
ness  and  everlasting  peace  kissed  each  other,  and  to  Him, — 
whether  we  would  dare  or  endure,  pity  or  denounce,  cut  down 
or  build  up, —  to  Him  we  turn  for  the  complete  example  of 
the  symmetrical  life  —  the  life  in  which  all  the  traits  of  nobility 
are  coordinate  and  entire,  in  which  wisdom  is  not  cold  nor 
zeal  roiled.  And  he  who  would  follow  Him,  must  be  a  mani 
fold  man,  Conservative  and  Radical  in  one. 

Under  the  domain  and  dominion  of  Christ,  the  old  and  the 
new,  instead  of  warring,  wed.  Judgment  replaces  and  enthu 
siasm  restores. 


THE    DUAL    STRENGTH    OF    CHRIST 


145 


The  two  terms  we  are  discussing  are  not  absolute,  but  relative. 
That  is  but  a  so-called  conservatism,  not  really  such,  which 
mistakes  routine  associations  for  the  truth  itself  and  identifies 
the  treasure  with  the  earthen  vessel, —  which  prefers  an  empty 
ark  to  a  living  Messiah. 

The  true  conserver  is  a  Radical,  in  desiring  to  keep  the  real 
thing.  The  perennial  second  commandment  is  dearer  to  him 
than  any  transient  device.  Form  is  to  him  a  utility  and  life 
alone  is  holy.  He  would  preserve  what  is  older  than  all  form 
in  any  form  that  will  hold  it  and  would  rather  have  a  quart  of 
truth  in  a  square  cup  than  a  pint  of  truth  in  a  round  one. 
Christ  was  such.  His  balance  was  far  superhuman.  He  whip 
ped  the  traffickers  from  the  temple,  yet  predicted  that  temples 
overthrow.  He  rebuked  petrified  tradition,  yet  declared,  "I 
came  not  to  to  destroy  but  to  fulfil."  To  the  Pharisees  He 
seemed  a  rash  leveller,  to  the  Herodians  a  futile  moralist. 
His  very  disciples  often  wanted  to  hasten  or  to  restrain  Him: 
but  He  would  neither  hurry  nor  delay. 

He  came  to  'set  men  at  variance,'  to  'kindle  a  fire/  to  'send 
a  sword,'  to  say  "every  plant  that  My  Father  hath  not  planted 
shall  be  rooted  up,"  "he  that  is  not  for  us  is  against  us":  but, 
and  also,  He  considered  the  bruised  reed-pen,  and  the  smould 
ering  flax-wick,  the  little  ones,  the  lost  sheep,  and  turning 
pride  upside  down,  He  put  in  the  beatitudes  a  premium  upon 
what  the  world  despises,  and  He  said  "  he  that  is  not  against 
us  is  on  our  part."  Evolution  and  revolution  wrought  together. 
Positive  yet  patient,  daring  yet  cautious,  never  hedging  and 
never  hasting,  He  was  outwardly  all  that  men  did  not  expect 
and  would  not  comprehend,  and  inwardly  all  that  they  needed. 
He  never  snarled  and  he  never  sneered.  He  never  mitigated 
His  meaning  nor  receded  from  his  program. 

He  affirmed  principles  and  left  them  to  work  out  their  appli 
cations.  He  was  too  slow  for  some  and  too  swift  for  others  — 
bi-partisanship  scouted  him.  He  was  so  supreme  that  no  one 
measured  Him.  President  Hyde  well  says,  "the  average  good 


146  RADICAL   AND    CONSERVATIVE 

man  is  equally  at  war  with  the  bad  man  who  is  below  him  and 
the  progressively  good  man  who  is  above  him.  The  reformer 
and  the  criminal  are  about  eqnally  obnoxious  to  the  man  of 
average  goodness  and  intelligence.  The  prophets  and  the  be 
trayers  are  equally  odious  and  promiscuously  stoned.  The 
Saviour  is  crucified  between  two  thieves." 

Still  the  church  is  but  semi-christian  in  its  emancipation 
from  what  is  seen  and  temporary.  It  still  but  begins  to  know 
its  mission  as  Christ's  ideal  of  society.  We  fail  to  see  that  the 
husk  is  precious  only  for  the  kernel's  sake,  and  that  when  the 
wheat  is  gone  what  is  left  is  straw  and  chaff.  The  old  is  good 
while  it  covers  and  contains  the  new,  after  that  it  is  a  dry  pod. 

John  the  Baptist  was  one  mighty  radical  who  illustrated  the 
law  that  they  who  wield  sharp  tools  must  feel  them:  but  that 
axe  of  his  laid  to  the  upas-tree  of  hollow  words  was  the  recon 
structive  agent  the  time  was  most  in  need  of,  and  his  lonely 
voice  was  the  herald  of  Israel's  King. 

Every  great  preserver  is  called  a  defoimer  till  he  is  gone. 
Men  are  prone  to  garnish  the  sepulchers  of  their  prophets 
with  epitaphs:  but  the  prophets  with  epithets.  The  many  feel 
more  secure  when  those  who  compel  them  to  think  are  under 
a  good-sized  slab ! 

It  remains  for  us,  if  we  would  neither  tear  nor  raffle  this 
seamless  text,  to  hold  to  the  fluidity  of  God's  purpose  and 
providence,  and  to  see  the  sacredness  of  all  its  conduits 
whether  present  or  past.  They  are  neither  identical  nor  inde 
pendent.  Truth  is  perennial,  and  we  hold  what  we  have  of  it 
both  as  the  heirs  of  our  parents  and  as  the  trustees  of  our 
children. 

That  age  is  most  important  which  does  the  most  to  empha 
size  what  is  of  permanent  importance.  The  wise  man  per 
ceives  both  what  is  permanent  and  what  is  progressive,  neither 
unduly  preponderating.  The  new  and  the  old  do  not  impeach 
one  another.  Origins,  means,  and  ends— all  are  coordinate. 
Revelation  is  a  process  by  which  what  is  vital  and  seminal 


NEW    SKIES    FOR    NEW    DAYS  147 

constantly  adapts  and  enlarges  its  new  expressions.  Finality 
is  death,  and  prejudice  the  rigor  mortis. 

'Providence  unfolds  the  book.'  It  is  not  a  kaleidoscope  for 
a  toy,  but  a  telescope  for  a  tool,  and  it  looks  deeper  than  any 
of  us  is  aware. 

Christ  planted  a  thousand  seeds  that  now  are  forests.  Under 
that  Argus-eyed,  Atlas-shouldered,  Briareus-handed  leader 
both  the  intensive  and  the  extensive  life  find  scope.  Under 
that  calm  and  conquering  dominion  we  are  not  to  be  terrified 
at  ideas  that  surpass  and  supersede  our  inherited  schemes. 
One  could  not,  for  instance,  crowd  our  modern  (and  still  ten 
tative)  conception  of  missionary  duty  into  the  ideals  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 

Slavery,  feudalism,  the  serfdom  of  one  sex,  have  felt  the 
touch  of  Christ's  sceptre,  and  the  cowardice  of  wealth,  as  the 
envy  of  want — all  usages  without  reason,  are  yet  to  own  His 
ever  germinal  Kingdom. 

We  are  to  imitate  faith  (fidelity),  not  fashions.  As  our  for 
bears  did,  so  must  we, —  tell  what  we  learn  of  God  in  our  own 
words  !  We  must  mint  our  own  coin-current.  We  are  not  in 
vited  to  repeat  the  wile  of  the  Gibeonites  (Joshua  gth)  and 
provide  ourselves  with  what  is  dry  and  mouldy  !  Miracles  are 
not  repeated,  greater  ones  are  wrought.  He  who  accustoms 
himself  to  God's  Spirit  finds  the  old  renewed  in  larger  wonders. 
God's  latency  is  all  in  all.  He  does  not  exhaust.  Life  is  in 
cessant  innovation.  It  is  only  when  one  stops  going  that  his 
horizon  and  perspectives  no  longer  change.  "  Tempora  non 
animnm" — "They  change  their  skies  but  not  their  souls  who 
traverse  the  ocean."  New  seas  are  sailed  under  new  stars. 
It  is  not  the  familiar  scene  but  'the  intimate  companion  that 
makes  life's  journey  serene.  If  you  are  scholars  of  the  great 
Teacher,  He  will  give  you  both  review  lessons  and  advance, 
and,  outgrowing  your  garments,  you  will  find  that  your  appre 
hension  of  today  will  not  fit  you  tomorrow,  certainly  not  the 
day  after  tomorrow.  "  Remember  Lot's  wife  ! " 


148  RADICAL   AND    CONSERVATIVE 

We  are  put  by  our  God  into  a  day  that  forces  us  upon  Him. 
Much  does  our  Lord's  word  apply  to  our  very  time.  It  is  a 
strong  detergent  to  "every  disciple  unto  the  kingdom  of 
Heaven." 

The  giant  is  out  of  the  bottle  !  The  era  of  analysis  is  not 
accidental,  it  is  providential.  Man  needed  it.  The  church 
needed  it.  God  awakens  us  from  "opiate  of  usage."  It  is  a 
revival.  The  ages  in  which  the  status  is  unchanged  are  wintry 
ages.  In  scholarship,  legislation,  society,  religion,  the  motion 
less  times  are  the  moribund.  Life  must  either  be  moribund  or 
more  abundant ! 

A  time  like  our  own  is  deplored  by  those  who  dread  any 
change  and  adored  by  those  who  love  all  change:  but,  if  sane, 
we  will  neither  neglect  nor  abuse  its  disciplines.  We  may 
neither  surrender  to  every  challenge,  nor  reject  every  claim. 
Truth  is  not  shaken  by  either  assault  or  doubt.  We  can  do 
nothing  against  it.  Magna  et  prevelabit — spite  of  harsh  at 
tack  or  feeble  defense. 

Just  as  to  a  man  walking  too  fast  upon  a  city's  crowded  side 
walk,  every  other  man  is  too  slow,  and  to  a  man  walking  too 
slowly  every  other  man  is  too  fast,  so  the  pace  of  the  world  is 
a  limitation  which  we  can  somewhat  affect,  but  to  which,  to 
affect  it,  we  must  somewhat  conform.  We  are  to  advance,  if 
effectively,  neither  too  slowly  nor  too  fast.  We  are  to  have  to 
utter  new  things  and  old,  old  things  and  new.  The  web  if  un 
folded  will  show  that  every  true  age  has  pressed  home  new 
woof  upon  the  old  warp.  We  cannot  do  more  than  to  utter 
our  own  convictions,  and  we  may  not  dare  do  less,  both 
aggressive  and  circumspect,  neither  timid  nor  tumid. 

The  processes  of  readjustment  compel  the  processes  of 
restatement,  and  both  these  processes  come  often  with  clamor 
and  always  with  pain:  but  only  those  wring  their  hands  whose 
assurances  are  outside  of  God.  There  are  half-men,  who  only 
see  one  way,  and  there  are  ages  dominated  by  such  men  that 
are  only  half- ages;  but  the  whole  man,  and  so  the  whole  age, 


OUR    SOULS    UNDER    MARCHING    ORDERS  149 

looks  both  ways,  and  sailing  by  the  North  star,  or  by  the 
Southern  Cross,  is  piloted  by  Him  who  sees  all  and  will  show 
all.  Holding  to  Him  the  genuine  soul  can  never  shiver  nor 
shrink. 

What  we  all  need  is  less  anxiety  over  precedent  and  more 
confidence  in  God.  In  the  trust  that  history  is  prophecy— 
that  God  is  here  — that  He  still  steers  the  world,  the  deep 
seers  of  our  century  have  spoken.  "In  Memoriam  "  voices 
this.  Whittier  is  the  bard  of  "that  great  law,  which  makes 
the  past  time  serve  today." 

"  Whate'r  of  good  the  old  time  had 

Is  living  still.        *        *        * 
God  works  in  all  things.    All  obey 
His  first  propulsions  from  the  night. 
Ho,  wake  and  watch  !     The  world  is  grey 

With  morning  light." 

Wordsworth  and  Robert  Browning  are  such  poet-seers. 

No,  "this  is  not  our  rest"  for  body  or  mind.  We  are  in 
transitu.  Our  souls  are  under  marching  orders,  and  lodge 
only  in  tents. 

What  this  word  of  Christ  should  fix  in  us  is  that  truth  is 
eternally  young.  Revelation,  nature,  man,  providence,  yield 
perpetual  increase.  The  encyclopedia  of  knowledge  must  be 
supplemented  with  annual  volumes. 

Pondering  the  inexhaustibleness  of  the  treasures  of  God  hid 
in  Christ,  richer,  deeper,  wider,  with  every  practical  test  of 
them,  a  truly  reverent  philosophy  of  this  world,  as  His,  must 
take  on  continually  grander  proportions,  and  must  speak  with 
ever  mightier  convictions  and  ever  better  arguments. 

No  true  science  remains  stationary.  Geology,  chemistry, 
astronomy,  biology, —  even  history, —  what  changes  of  method 
and  result  have  these  undergone  in  three  generations  !  But 
the  objects  have  not  changed,  nor  have  the  necessary  mathe 
matics  of  thought  changed. 

World  and  event  prove    Him    the    Interpreter   of  time   and 


150  RADICAL  AND  CONSERVATIVE 

eternity.  The  more  He  does,  the  more  He  both  displays  and 
confirms.  His  words  are  not  Dead  Seas:  but  wells  of  living 
waters.  The  "  Heir  of  all  things,"  His  latest  words  are  His 
largest.  Who  shall  debar  His  illimitable  and  crescent  sway! 
Upon  Him  all  converges,  and  from  Him  all  radiates.  The  old 
and  the  new  blend  in  Him. 

May  every  one  of  us  be  a  true  disciple  to  that  kingdom 
where  the  old  story  bursts  into  the  new  song! 

Men  of  the  Class  of  95: 

This  '  commencement '  is  an  ending:  but  far  more  is  it  a  be 
ginning.  Poetic  fitness,  as  well  as  convenience,  long  ago 
transferred  it  from  the  autumn  of  the  college  year  to  the  sum 
mer.  Your  real  curriculum  is  not  behind  you,  but  before. 

You  are  now  to  translate  and  parse  that  "  Sunt  quos  curri 
cula  pulverem  Olympicum  Collegisse  juvat"  The  Olympic 
dust  is  yonder.  The  college  has  been  but  your  introduction 
to  the  "  collegisse"  You  are  whirling  up  to  the  line,  and  are 
all  but  ready  for  the  word.  Let  me  add  my  voice  to  the  send 
ing  cheer. 

When  you  come  panting  and  straining  to  the  finish  —  "the 
goal  nicely-avoided  by  the  glowing  wheels,  and  the  noble 
palm" — the  voices  that  shout  "Well  done!"  will  not  sound 
here!  In  that  eternal  commencement,  having  "  finished  your 
course  with  joy,"  may  it  be  true  of  you  each  and  all,  in  a  far 
deeper  sense  than  bilthe  Horace  ever  considered  — "  evekit 
ad Deos\"  Bethink  yourselves  that  you  are  charioteers — "a 
Bcarpov  to  the  universe  and  to  angels."  I  am  sure  that  you 
would  admonish  the  new-fledged  Sophomores  here  who  are 
kindly  translating  my  little  Latin  to  the  maidens  beside  them— 
( "  junctacque  Nymphis  gratia  dece?ites") —  to  bestir  them 
selves  even  already  for  that  third  summer  hence  when  they  too 
shall  gather  taut  the  reins  for  their  life  race. 

Goodbys  are  always  trite:  but  not  the  less  are  they  solemn. 
Already,  to  two  of  your  company  —  to  Frank  Burrowes,  who 


THE  LATEST  LIVING  GRADUATE  OF    95  151 

died  in  September,  '93,  and  to  John  Myers,  jr.,  who  died  in 
July,  '94, —  you  have  given  the  irrevocable  farewell.  Forty-six 
men  began  the  work  of  your  class  four  years  ago,  twenty-nine 
men  complete  the  roll  now.  Never,  after  this  week,  will  so 
many  of  you  gather  under  one  roof  !  In  groups  you  will 
return  to  the  dear  hillside  of  your  common  love:  but  little  by 
little  your  ranks  will  gather  closer,  until,  perhaps  in  1955,  you 
will  hold  your  last  class  meeting  —  of  one  !  He  will  come,  the 
relic  of  you  all.  He  will  ride  up  the  hill  he  can  then  no  longer 
climb.  He  will,  with  some  young  guide,  not  to  be  born  for 
thirty  years  yet,  observe  the  stately  new  buildings,  and  people 
the  old  with  you  and  your  comrades  of  the  moss-grown  I9th 
century.  Perhaps  he  will  say  a  kindly  word  at  the  mound 
where  one  shall  be  resting  who  for  three  years  (under  what 
ever  college  vicissitudes)  was  a  good  friend  of  '95.  He  will 
look  out  upon  the  lovely  slopes,  and  beyond  the  curving  hills 

—  the  boys  will  gather  in  their  caps  and  gowns,  and  cheer, — 
Boom  Rah  !  Boom  Rah  !  Who  is  he  ? 

Vive  La  !  Vive  La  !  XCV ! 

—  and  then — he  will  go  down  into  the  valley! 

But  in  between  this  day  and  that  work  lies — your  real 
standing  is  to  be  registered.  It  is  a  good  time  to  live !  Live 
well !  Live  boldly  !  We  shall  watch  you  from  this  signal  sta 
tion.  You  will  be  welcomed  back,  with  your  honors  new  and 
old.  The  white  spire  and  its  far-flashing  point  will  guide  you 
home  again.  The  bell  will  greet  you.  The  old  well  will  bub 
ble  for  you.  You  will  send  on  your  boys  for  the  nineteen- 
twenties.  All  good  to  you  in  the  strenuous  years  upon  which 
you  enter.  Be  Christ's  men !  Accept  every  one  of  you  His 
name,  His  present  guerdon  of  self-sacrifice,  and  graduate 
having  at  last  "having  obtained  the  good  degree,"  and  all  of 
you  with  high  honor! 

And  this  be  our  goodby. 


Cree&fi 

THE  ANNUAL  SERMON  BEFORE  THE 

ALUMNI  OF  AUBURN  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

MAY  9,  1895 

"  For  we  know  in  part" — I  Corinthians  13:9. 

NEITHER  agnosticism  nor  omniscience  !  We  at  once  know 
and  do  not  know;  we  know  something,  not  everything.  Ac 
cording  to  our  knowledge  we  are  to  "prophecy,"  or  proclaim. 
Our  present  degree  is  at  once  a  mighty  incentive  to  speech, 
and  a  limitation  to  make  reason  modest.  We  are  not  to  be 
irresolute,  and  neither  are  we  to  assume  to  be  infallible.  En 
ergy  is  our  duty,  but  finality  belongs  to  God. 

The  Apostle  Peter  left  this  catholic  admonition:  "Grow  in 
grace  and  in  knowledge."  These  growths,  if  they  are  genuine, 
are  coincident.  Growth  is  the  proof  of  life.  But  growth  means 
outgrowth  —  not  by  loss  but  by  gain,  by  comprehension.  The 
measure  of  every  spiritual  soul  must  be  followed  by  the  plus 
sign.  While  the  present  is  stated,  it  is  already  past.  The 
links  of  life  are  an  endless  and  increasing  series.  "Tomorrow 
shall  (under  God)  be  as  today  and  more  abundantly;"  the 
latest  the  largest;  the  best  wine  last.  God's  "increasing  pur 
pose"  leads  the  ductile  mind  into  ever  'more  stately  man 
sions.'  "  For  we  know  in  part."  And  to  know  that  we  know 
in  part  is  the  condition  of  knowing  more.  It  puts  us  safe  from 
both  immobility  and  confusion. 

With  the  hope  that  you  will  open  your  hearts  to  this  quick 
ening  thought,  I  ask  you  to  reckon  with  its  bearings  upon  the 
unclosed  question  of  Creeds. 

Fellow  Alumni  of  Auburn,  we  are  children  of  a  school  whose 
genius  is  that  of  both  conservatism  and  freedom.  This  place 


STOLIDITY  IS  HERESY 


153 


is  not  noted  either  for  toadstools  or  for  trilobites.  We  stand 
solidly  for  truth  and  for  valid  tests  of  it  and  for  all  of  both 
truth  and  test  that  we  can  get.  You  will  hear  me  patiently 
and  candidly,  as  I  submit  my  thesis  to  your  sober  and  devout 
consideration. 

I,  for  my  part,  am  sure  that  one  who  would  appreciate  "the 
law  of  the  spirit  of  life  in  Jesus  Christ "  as  a  law  of  progress  in 
both  appreciation  and  affirmation,  must  renounce  that  mental 
inertia  and  laziness  whose  indulgence  dishonors  "  the  abund 
ance  of  revelations."  Lazy  thought  is  always  sleazy  thought. 

Every  man  must  earn  his  theological  assets,  and  in  his  own 
idiom  declare  his  own  conviction.  Faith  and  the  hope  it 
nourishes  are  what  none  can  lend  and  none  borrow.  Love's  in 
tuitions  come  at  love's  price.  "  Sayest  thou  this  of  thyself,  or 
did  some  others  tell  it  thee  of  me?  "  "  It  is  the  heart,"  said 
Henry  B.  Smith,  "  that  makes  the  theologian,"  and  the  heart  is 
never  satisfied  with  "  the  things  that  are  behind."  And  so  it 
yearns  toward  the  unretracted  pledge  of  our  Lord:  "Ye  shall 
see  greater  things  than  these."  Expectancy  is  cardinal.  To 
regard  the  tuition  of  the  Eternal  Spirit  as  a  closed  canon  de 
nies  the  immanence  of  Christ  and  regards  revelation  as  a 
mathematical  crystal,  rather  than  as  a  palpitating  heart. 

To  "  know  as  we  ought  to  know,"  is  to  watch  the  bearings 
of  the  figures  upon  that  growing  web,  upon  whose  unbroken 
warp  manifold  wisdom  smites  home  the  woof  of  the  present. 
These  nineteen  centuries  are  not  fringe;  they  are  part  of  the 
pattern.  Providence  is  the  interpreter.  Deeper  and  deeper 
strike  the  roots,  as  the  boughs  spread  wider  and  wider.  The 
perpetual  Leader  "  takes  the  things  of  Christ  "  and  shows  their 
unremitting  increase.  Far  from  being  orthodox,  it  is  not  even 
devout  not  to  expect  new  demonstrations  of  Christ  in  the  ap 
plication  of  His  exhaustless  precepts  to  new  problems.  So  far 
we  have  seen  "  but  a  part  of  his  ways,  and  many  such  things 
are  with  Him."  Discipleship  can  never  be  stationary.  Living 
waters  run.  Revelation  is  not  a  pond  but  a  stream. 


154  CREEDS 

No  one  transcript  says  the  last  word  concerning  the  dis 
closures  of  God.  Eternity  will  be  forever  new  with  discov 
eries.  Not  only  are  we  now,  but  we  will  always  be  under  the 
dawn.  Time  and  Earth  speed  to  their  afternoon;  but  knowl 
edge  is  a  morning  whose  sun  shall  rise  while  God  lives.  The 
desiring  heart  bounds  with  joy  to  know  that  holy  and  ardent 
curiosity  shall  never  weary  or  want,  and  that  love  shall  never 
climb  its  last  summit  nor  utter  its  last  surprised  rapture  of 
adoration. 

These  holy  books  are  not  only  supremely  important  history, 
they  are  also  specimens  of  God's  method  —  of  His  continuity  of 
increase. 

Everything  that  is  here  was  first  written  upon  human  souls. 
The  book  is  the  corollary  of  that.  The  inspiration  preceded 
the  record.  The  parchments  were  memoranda  of  God's  per 
sonal  imprimatur  upon  persons — spirit  answering  to  spirit, 
the  deep  within  calling  to  the  deep  above. 

Progress  of  teaching  is  displayed  from  the  earliest  leaf  of 
scripture  to  the  latest,  and  the  history  of  doctrine  in  the  church 
is  full  of  new  and  newer  apprehension  of  this  living  oracle. 
That  the  book  is  God's  book  is  shown  in  that  we  never  learn 
the  last  of  it.  And  that  the  real  church  is  God's  church  is 
shown  in  that  it  is  a  school  whence  no  true  pupil  ever  grad 
uates.  The  'songs  of  degrees'  will  have  no  end. 

Theology  is  man's  philosophy  about  God.  It  takes  this  book 
of  the  ages  and  rearranges  its  materials  into  other  octavos.  It 
fuses  these  ores  and  coins  them  under  its  own  date.  It  is  an 
excellent,  indeed  an  indispensable  process  and  result;  but  not 
being  infallible,  it  cannot  be  final.  Each  new  volume  grows 
out  of,  and  is,  more  or  less  consciously,  educed  by  the  special 
exigencies  and  needs  of  that  time  that  writes  it. 

Each  age  is  a  crucible,  and  while  the  mold  is  provisional 
and  transitional,  the  material  is  the  main  thing.  The  book  is 
needed,  is  written,  is  read  and  goes  to  its  quiet  shelf.  It  does 
its  work  for  its  own  period  and  whatever  is  essential  has  its 


BETTER  HEED,  BETTER  CREED  155 

vital  result  in  the  souls  of  men,  there  and  nowhere  else  to  live. 
Every  statement  of  truth  is  good,  when  it  makes  the  way  for 
one  that  is  better. 

I  am  well  aware  of  its  perverse  use  by  some,  but  neverthe 
less,  I  am  willing  to  say  with  emphasis  those  lines  of  England's 
greatest  laureate: 

"  Our  little  systems  have  their  day, 

They  have  their  day  and  cease  to  be, 

They  are  but  broken  lights  of  Thee, 

And  Thou,  O  Lord,  art  more  than  they." 

At  once  with  the  systematization  of  our  present,  and  there 
fore  partial,  knowledge,  we  have  introduced  a  new  arrange 
ment.  The  scientific  method  has  displaced  the  natural  and 
vital.  The  sphere  has  become  a  cube.  It  is  the  problem  of 
squaring  the  circle.  Each  new  pen  adds  new  figures  to  the 
statement.  They  may  and  should  increase  the  approximation; 
but  the  fraction,  however  far  extended  from  the  decimal  point, 
can  never  be  completed.  The  scientific  method  is  of  indisput 
able  value,  but  only  when  its  limitations  are  recognized,  when 
the  evidential  never  usurps  the  intuitional.  It  is  corroborative, 
but  it  is  indirect.  Fallible  hands  always  wield  fallible  instru 
ments.  Theology  is,  I  gladly  consent,  "  the  queen  of  sciences," 
but  knowledge  is  the  king.  He  who  really  knows  a  thing, 
knows  more  than  he  can  scientifically  demonstrate. 

The  inherent  danger  of  systematic  theology  is  rationalism. 
I  do  not  say  the  vice,  I  say  the  danger.  The  danger  only 
becomes  a  vice  when  we  deny  or  forget  it.  Rationalism  is  the 
vanity  of  human  logic,  declaring  itself  independent  and  all- 
sufficing.  Orthodox  speculation  may  be,  and  so  far  as  its 
manner  goes,  often  is  just  as  rationalistic  as  heretical  spec 
ulation. 

Our  tools  are  not  exact  enough  so  to  square  the  ends  of  our 
propositions  that  we  can  pile  them  indefinitely.  Just  because 
of  our  confidence  in  Biblical  premises,  we  must  take  as  tenta 
tive,  the  conclusions  that  mix  them  with  our  minor  premises. 


I§6  CREEDS 

Deduction  is  insecure  after  it  builds  past  two  or  three  stories. 
I  prefer  to  dwell  on  the  ground  floor;  upon  "the  things  that 
cannot  be  shaken."  The  sorites  is  man-made.  To  say  more 
than  God  is  as  great  heresy  as  to  say  less. 

The  Bible  contains  doctrine,  but  it  is  not  a  system  of  doctrine. 
If  it  is  a  system,  then  any  other  system  is  impertinent.  I 
believe  the  Bible  warrants  systems  of  doctrine;  but  that  the 
quarry  is  God's  and  their  architecture  ours. 

Two  buildings  may  honestly  try  to  build  in  all  their  mater 
ials:  but  one  will  be  Roman,  and  another  Greek,  and  others 
still,  Gothic,  or  modern  English.  Each  may  be  a  mental  shelter, 
none  exhausts  possibility  of  combination.  A  map  of  the 
White  Mountains  from  Mt.  Washington  will  be  one  map,  from 
Mt.  Jefferson  another.  Each  will  be  true  if  it  includes  all 
it  can  see.  The  Bible  is  not  a  map,  it  is  a  mountain  range. 
The  maps  help  to  describe  the  hills;  but  the  hills  are  the  end, 
and  the  maps,  means.  The  vital  ways  of  revelation  are  not 
mechanical,  nor  yet  metaphysical.  The  apostles  taught  and 
wrote  most  naturally,  not  in  the  way  of  legal  treatise  or  con 
tract.  They  were  direct  rather  than  diplomatic,  narrative 
rather  than  discursive.  Their  ardor  was  not  on  the  defensive, 
and  their  very  unguardedness  was  convincing.  Their  accuracy 
surpassed  all  verbalism,  and  their  harmony  was  concord  rather 
than  unison.  They  are  not  collusive,  but  complemental.  And 
so  they  are  to  be  taken  breadthwise  and  lifewise.  To  seize 
"  the  analogy  of  the  faith;"  both  as  to  method  and  as  to  mat 
ter,  we  must  take  it  as  they  gave  it,  straining  nothing  to  fit  into 
a  "scheme,"  and  contented  with  Paul  to  "know  in  part." 
This  and  this  only,  is  to  magnify  God's  word  above  man's. 
"  Many  other  things  did  Jesus  which  are  not  written  in  this 
book,"  and  I  suppose  we  all  adoringly  avow  that  He  is  still 
doing.  Good  faith  denies  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  profane 
history;  all  history  is  sacred  save  to  profane  men. 

Biblical  Theology,  in  distinction  from  Systematic  Theology, 
keeps  close  to  the  sources.  The  Bible  is  the  referee;  back  and 


EXPECTANCY  IS  EVANGELICAL  157 

ever  back  "  to  the  law  and  the  testimony."  All  books  are  good 
that  bend  to  this  "  Divine  Library,"  as  Jerome  called  it.  The 
technical  method  of  definition  is,  in  terms,  finite.  It  shuts  out, 
as  well  as  shuts  in.  A  fence  has  necessary  uses;  sometimes 
even  a  barbed-wire  fence.  It  restrains  beasts  and  makes  a 
good  roost  for  birds.  For  men  it  should  have  plenty  of  gates 
in  it,  swinging  easily  both  ways,  seeing  that  in  the  matter  of 
truth  God  alone  has  eminent  domain.  "Easement"  is  public 
right. 

Reverence  for  God's  demonstrations,  which  are  truly  biolog 
ical  rather  than  morphological,  which  in  all  fulness  took  the 
nature  of  man  as  their  elect  vehicle, —  this  reverence,  refusing 
to  be  wise  above  what  He  says  and  does,  accepts  the  human 
paraphrase  as  partial  and  evanescent.  The  seal  of  our  Presby 
terian  part  of  God's  church  is  an  open  Bible.  Let  it  be  opened 
wider,  and  let  our  spirits  open  toward  it,  always  remembering 
that,  in  the  Westminster  words,  "  The  purest  churches  under 
heaven  are  subject  to  both  mixture  and  error."  We  must  not 
dare  to  assume  to  know  what  God  has  wifhheld.  Logic  is 
pallid  beside  the  changing  emphasis  of  life.  Scholarship  is 
only  genuine  when  it  keeps  itself  synonymous  with  disciple- 
ship.  Statement  advances  under  the  tuition  of  God  and  de 
mands  restatement. 

"  The  fathers  had  not  all  of  Thee; 

New  births  are  in  thy  grace; 
All  open  to  our  souls  shall  be 
Thy  Spirit's  hiding  place." 

"Take  heed  lest  there  shall  be  any  one  that  maketh  spoil  of 
you  thro  his  philosophy  and  vain  deceit,  after  the  rudiments 
of  the  world,  and  not  after  Christ." 

So  said  the  apostle,  (Col.  2:8),  who  boldly  wrote,  "We  know 
in  part," — imperfectly. 

No  chemical  formula  can  state  what  a  child  is  to  his  mother. 
As  soon  as  we  redistribute  truth,  we  have  missed  an  inherent 
somewhat,  that  eludes  analysis.  We  must  not  identify  manni- 


158  CREEDS 

kin  with  man.  The  vital  secret  evades  the  clinic.  The  law  of 
life  refuses  an  equation. 

Analysis  is  like  turning  a  stocking  inside  out  to  mend  it; 
synthesis  is  like  turning  it  back  to  wear  it.  But  it  is  not  quite 
the  same.  When  we  divide  and  recombine,  the  result  carries 
the  marks  of  the  process;  a  certain  original  naturalness  neces 
sarily  has  escaped.  One  can  never  unpack  and  perfectly  re 
pack  an  egg.  He  can  perhaps  restore  the  matter  but  not  the 
arrangement.  It  can  be  eaten  but  it  will  not  hatch.  Bees  do 
not  hover  over  artificial  flowers.  Partially,  (of  course!)  all  this 
can  suggest  that  while  wisdom  furnished  the  outfit  of  a  prepo 
sitional  theology,  that  wisdom  was  revealed  in  a  more  excel 
lent  way.  The  permission  to  philosophize  is  also  the  inculca 
tion  of  humility.  In  the  word,  as  in  the  world,  suggestion  is 
shoreless;  truth  is  fluid,  not  frozen  —  molten,  not  molded. 
Here  is  a  man,  not  anatomy;  here  are  wells,  not  cisterns;  tides, 
not  ripples;  a  sky  full  —  fathomlessly  full — of  stars,  not  a 
stellar  map,  which  is  a  tabled  surface  without  depths  and  back 
grounds. 

Botany  has  its  merits,  but  its  herbarium  is  not  a  garden. 
We  want  it,  but  we  want  more  the  perfume  of  revelation, 
rooted  and  growing.  Our  laboratories  can  never  supersede 
the  chemistry  of  May.  Creation  is  a  poem,  translatable  (partly) 
into  prose,  but  appealing  to  feeling  as  prose  cannot.  God  is  a 
poet  and  man  is  His  epic.  Euclid  and  Aristotle  furnish  one 
much,  but  John  Zebedee,  and  Paul,  offer  more. 

Even  heroic  bronze  and  marble  borrow  from  the  beholder. 
Their  metonomy  is  only  vindicated  in  his  memory.  Any 
theodicy  that  is  not  punctuated  with  interrogation  marks  re 
quires  that  the  proof-reader  shall  insert  exclamations. 

Our  catenas  may  include  more  or  less  of  the  priceless  attar, 
but  they  are  all  brittle  vessels  and  some  to  honor  and  some  to 
dishonor.  No  single  period  has  exhausted  God  or  man. 
There  are  always  surds.  Whatever  is  alive  is  mobile.  Any 
theory  that  announces  its  completeness  digs  its  own  grave. 


BETTER    TELESCOPE,    MORE    STARS  159 

Identity,  with  its  personal  relations,  continues,  but  our 
bodies  die  daily.  The  man  never  outgrows  his  father,  while 
he  puts  away  many  childish  things  —  clothes  and  their  fashions, 
notions  and  their  phrases,  and  so  at  last  he  attains  true  child- 
likeness  and  "  flnds  the  blessedness  of  being  little."  And  the 
ology,  unless  it  has  exchanged  plasticity  for  ossification, 
retires  from  its  volumes  this  and  that  conjectural  and  tenuous 
paragraph  and  rewrites  its  translation  with  pain  and  purging. 
To  say  "there  can  be  nothing  new  in  theology,"  is  either  to 
dismiss  its  assistance,  or  to  make  of  it  a  graven  image  and 
imitate  the  stagnant  decrees  of  the  Council  of  Trent.  It  is  to 
say,  "I  have  found  out  the  Almighty  to  perfection,"  and  is  as 
impious  as  it  would  be  to  say  "there  can  be  nothing  new  in 
astronomy  ! "  Each  better  telescope  has  that  boast  in  derision. 
No,  the  glory  of  this  cathedral  is  that  it  is  unfinished.  The 
soundest  theology  knows  that  it  is  the  quotient,  or  rather  the 
multiple  of  truth  and  experience.  The  obiter  dicta  of  men  too 
often  deny  the  authenticity  of  inspiration  and  lead  toward 
Deism.  When  we  go  with  the  Living  God,  we  change  our 
maps.  It  is  true  of  Him,  but  never  of  us — "there  is  no  paral 
lax,  nor  eclipse." 

By  no  post-mortem,  of  the  third  century  or  of  the  sixteenth, 
are  we  to  find  what  man  is  to  believe  concerning  God,  or  what 
duties  God  requires  of  man;  but  by  heeding  the  ever-consist 
ent  and  ever-persistent  Spirit  of  Christ.  Faith  cannot  be 
copied  or  copyrighted.  As  we  come  out  of  the  damp  and  in 
door  air  of  man-made  explanations,  our  lungs  and  eyes  both 
do  better.  Having  sat  at  the  feet  of  Gamaliel,  we  fall  on  our 
faces  before  the  noon-transcendent  Christ  and  re-learn. 

It  is  just  so  far  as  opinion  corrects  itself  by  His  word,  as 
"the  only  infallible  rule,"  that  it  has  any  claim  to  speak  or  be 
heard.  The  "  unadultered  milk,"  is  "  the  simplicity  that  is  in 
Christ."  We  should  be  grateful  to  all  serious  and  modest 
souls  who  have  handled  the  problems  of  divinity,  and  we  must 
"  imitate  their  faith,"  by  handling  these  for  ourselves.  Their 


160  CREEDS 

warrant  is  ours,  too.  They  acknowledged  no  mortmain  and 
we  cannot.  No  syllabus  is  an  ultimatum;  it  is  rather  like  the 
catalog  of  a  living  library,  accurate  to  date.  It  may  be  a  good 
index,  but  never  can  exhaust  all  the  cross-references. 

That  catholic  man  and  tireless  student,  Henry  B.  Smith, 
said  well:  "He  who  asserts  that  there  is  no  truth  in  past  sys 
tems  and  thinks  to  make  one  wholly  original,  and  he  who  as 
serts  that  the  whole  of  truth,  in  its  most  perfect  form,  is  given 
us  in  the  formulas  of  the  past,  and  only  there,  each  of  them  is 
equally  distant  from  the  just  equilibrium.  *  *  The  whole 
history  of  theology  gives  but  the  attempt  to  reproduce  the 
contents  of  scripture  in  the  forms  needed  by  the  different 
times  in  which  the  different  systems  were  made." 

Those  weighty  syllables  contain  what  I  mean,  that  the  church 
militant  is  a  church  marching,  that  as  the  sun  rises  the  shad 
ows  shift  and  shorten,  that  all  ongoing  swings  the  horizon. 
No  two  battles  are  the  same,  even  if  issued  upon  the  same 
field.  Certain  defences  are  abandoned  when  the  enemy 
attacks  flank  or  rear.  Silenced  batteries  and  spiked  guns  are 
worth  no  further  powder.  Change  of  strategy  is  not  surren 
der.  They  used  to  complain  of  Bonaparte  that  he  violated 
the  accustomed  evolutions  of  battle.  It  was  that  supreme 
genius  in  tactics  who  said  "  the  army  that  stays  in  its  entrench 
ments  beaten."  Surely  one  is  not  disloyal  to  the  constitution 
of  these  United  States,  because  heartily  approving  its  amend 
ments.  Our  bright  flag  is  not  the  same  that  waved  first  on 
land  at  Fort  Stanwix,  then  at  Trenton,  upon  Lake  Erie  and 
over  Fort  Sumter:  but  we  love  it  because  it  expresses  growth 
in  its  revision.  We  keep  the  stripes  and  make  room  for  all 
the  stars  that  come.  Franklin  and  Adams,  Hamilton  and 
Madison  and  Marshall  were  sturdy  patriots:  but  they  were 
not  the  last  of  the  line. 

Well  then,  at  last  I  approach  my"  main  contention  and  I 
would  express  my  conviction  of  the  proper  distinction  be 
tween  theology  and  creed.  It  is  one  of  uses.  A  creed  should 


FOR  SIMPLICITY  AND  DIRECTNESS  I$I 

express  attitude  as  well  as  opinion,  and  it  must  be  portable. 
Creeds  are  guidons  and  banners.  They  are  symbols  and 
standards.  They  should  be  emblems  not  encyclopedias  — 
titles  rather  than  indexes.  The  best  are  those  that  are  the 
most  vivid  and  pity,  writ  in  large  letters  and  short  words.  A 
good  creed  affirms  facts  not  inferences.  The  Te  Deum  which 
I  would  call  the  best  confession  of  faith  since  that  of  the  Apos 
tle  Thomas,  is  not  abstract  nor  is  it  panoramic.  Moreover  it 
is  lyrical.  The  best  creed  will  be  adoring  rather  than  explan 
atory.  It  will  be  positive  and  personal  and  will  prompt,  and 
perhaps  supply,  anthems.  Ascription  is  a  higher  and  more 
influential  tribute  than  subscription.  Creeds  are  the  landmarks 
of  great  campaigns.  They  have  always  punctuated  the  pro 
gress  of  the  church.  The  elaborate  amplifications  of  Augsburg, 
Dort,  and  the  rest  showed  the  competency  of  the  reformation 
to  antagonize  its  terrible  foes.  I  admire  the  massive  masonry 
and  revere  it  services;  these  are  bastions;  but  while  I  am  im 
pressed,  I  am  not  attracted.  "  I  cannot  go  with  these  for  I 
have  not  proved  them." 

The  regulative  principle  of  these  great  symbols,  is  the  non- 
finality  of  all  human  statements.  In  their  bold  affirmative- 
ness  and  determined  revision  they  emphasize  a  progress  to 
which  they  could  and  would  set  no  period. 

That  venerable  chapter  will  not  be  erased.  It  is  exemplary. 
What  they  saw  they  said. 

Holmes  says  "Science  is  the  art  of  packing  knowledge." 
The  folios  and  quartos  should  be  kept  accessible:  but  they  do 
not  forbid  the  handier  duodecimo.  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  the  New  England  primer  has  done  more  educating  than 
Turretin.  There  is  nothing  holy  about  a  polysyllable.  I  plead 
for  shorter  statements  not  shallower,  for  clearness  not  weak 
ness,  for  a  closer  front,  for  increased  distinctness.  The  church 
is  the  servant  and  trustee  of  a  definite  gospel.  She  knows 
whom  she  has  believed,  and  is  bound  both  to  confess  Christ 
before  men,  and  evermore  to  ask — "what  think  ye  of  HIM?" 


162  CREEDS 

Christianity  is  a  life  based  upon  commitment  to  Christ  as  the 
Saviour  from  sin.  This  is  the  calyx  and  cover.  Let  us  stand 
at  this  centre  and  so  have  word,  work,  and  worship  all  concen 
tric  and  all  Christian,  not  incidentally  but  elementally.  Prov 
idence  is  the  radius  swung  about  that  point!  Assuredly  that 
will  be  most  Patro-centric  which  is  most  Christo-centric.  To 
the  credulity  of  infidelity,  to  the  dogmatic  agnosticism  which 
denies  the  knowledge  of  God,  to  the  bigotry  of  indiffer 
ence,  and  to  the  sharp-set  creed  of  creedlessness,  we  are  con 
fidently  and  constantly  to  affirm  the  love  of  God  in  Christ  as 
the  law  of  life. 

That  "  liberalism  "  which  would  resolve  the  church  into  a 
debating  society  and  change  the  thesis  of  the  cross  into  hy 
pothesis  chooses  to  renounce  the  sweep  and  summons  of  the 
Christian  facts. 

That  is  slovenly  thinking  that  wants  to  read  time  by  a  "lib 
eral"  chronometer,  weigh  duty  in  a  "liberal"  scales,  and  steer 
by  a  "liberal"  compass.  We  do  not  want  less  fibre,  but  more. 
We  would  not  abandon  our  positions,  but  defend  them  with 
modern  ordnance.  We  would  have  statements  that  in  all  their 
length  and  breadth  can  stand  not  only  the  dialectical  test,  but 
what  is  far  more  searching,  the  homiletical  test. 

There  is  a  cheap  and  glib  assault  upon  the  Westminster  con 
fession  by  those  who  have  not  read  it,  and  to  whom  serious 
and  careful  thought  is  so  irksome,  that  they  would  not  appre 
ciate  it  if  they  had.  Here  is  a  declaration  and  testimony  whose 
influence  witnesses  the  learning  and  wisdom  of  its  sponsors. 
It  was  the  precipitate  of  a  great  age.  It  has  vigor  and  sap. 
It  is  vertebrated  and  erect.  It  was  written  between  prayers. 
It  gave  a  sheet-anchor  to  England  and  Scotland,  too,  when 
church  and  state  were  all  adrift.  It  has  stood  so  long  and 
served  so  well  because  it  was  so  good  and  such  an  advance 
upon  its  predecessors.  It  has  been  so  conservative  because  it 
was  so  positive.  It  is  strong  because  it  denies  so  much  error, 
and  explains  so  much  truth. 


FLYING  ARTILLERY  NEEDED  163 

I  would  neither  undervalue  nor  overvalue  it.  "We  know  in 
part."  It  cannot  be  that  the  last  statement  under  that  mo 
mentous  verb  credo  (in  which  man  should  be  at  once  at  his 
loftiest  and  his  lowliest)  was  written  in  1649  '  I  can  assent 
bona  fide  and  con  amore  to  that  instrument  as  containing  a 
system  of  doctrine  warranted  by  the  Scripture.  I  cannot  say 
that  it  is  the  system  Scripture  teaches;  for  Scripture  does  not 
teach  by  system  nor  can  I  say  that  it  is  the  only  system  Scrip 
ture  warrants;  for  that  would  be  to  denounce  the  point  of  view 
of  other  Christian  brethren  who  by  their  fruits  may  be  known 
to  be  as  near  to  God  as  we  are,  and  yet  who  have  built  their 
philosophical  house  another  way.  I  like  it  far  better  than  any 
other  system  man  has  so  far  made;  but  it  is  a  little  long  for  a 
creed.  Systems  will  do  as  garrison  flags  —  36  feet  long;  creeds 
are  better  at  the  regimental  measure  of  6  feet  and  6  inches. 

I  would  therefore  see  a  new  statement  to  avoid  both  the 
deficiencies  and  the  redundancies  of  this.  My  feeling  is  that 
many  of  its  inferences  are  extra-Biblical  and  some  infra-Biblical. 
It  does  not  do  equal  justice  to  the  different  summits  in  God's 
range  of  attributes.  But  I  do  not  desire  to  criticise  this  house 
that  has  sheltered  so  many  of  my  ancestors.  I  do  not  want  to 
see  it  tinkered,  mangled,  desecrated,  changed  from  its  identity 
into  some  dichromatic  eccentricity  which  would  have  the  faults 
of  two  periods  with  the  strength  of  neither. 

I  make  no  apology  for  referring  to  the  attempt  and  failure 
of  four  years  ago.  That  movement  toward  a  so-called  revision 
failed  for  many  reasons  and  with  few  to  mourn,  When  the 
committee  said  to  the  presbyteries,  "how  will  this  do?"  the 
more  part  replied,  "it  will  not  do." 

There  were  some  who  wanted  nothing  changed  and  who 
were  satisfied  that  the  Confession  was  good  for  250  years 
longer. 

There  were  some  who  wanted  numerous  verbal  changes  and 
some  paragraphs  modified,  but  who  liked  the  philosophical 
method  and  held  to  its  permanent  adequacy. 


164  CREEDS 

And  there  were  some  who  thought  that  all  revision  would 
be  either  too  much  or  too  little;  who  thought  a  brief,  ardent 
and  profoundly  evangelical  statement  could  well  be  made  now 
for  actual  uses  in  our  churches,  not  one  in  twenty  of  whose 
members  know  practically  anything  of  the  Westminster  con 
fession.  A  true  creed  should  be  popular  rather  than  official. 
It  should  be  both  handy  and  hearty. 

Of  those  who  then  urged  the  need  of  such  a  creed  I  am 
thankful  to  say  I  was  one,  and  I  have  ventured  to  broach  this 
subject  now,  because  I  firmly  believe  the  recent  postpone 
ments  have  but  increased  the  demand  and  the  duty. 

It  should  be  written  in  full  recognitiou  of  the  value  of  past 
creeds  and  of  their  necessary  temporariness.  It  should  not 
attempt  to  sketch  the  whole  coast  line  of  present  Christian 
knowledge;  bui  should  present  all  the  great  lighthouse  head 
lands.  It  should  be  warm,  thankful,  and  martial,  a  "confession 
of  hope "  too,  one  that  could  be  joyfully  used  and  clearly 
understood  in  Christian  worship,  and  that  would  furnish  an 
entirely  adequate  test  of  official  loyalty  to  the  everlasting  gos 
pel  and  the  ever-crescent  kingdom  of  God's  dear  Son.  The 
seventeenth  century  wrote  its  noble  chapter  and  said  what  it 
honestly  believed.  It  was  definitive  then.  For  its  time  it  was 
generous  and  conciliatory.  Why  should  not  we  do  as  much 
for  our  day?  Why  should  we  imitate  Pharoah's  command  to 
the  midwives  and  if  the  cry  is  that  of  a  man-child,  kill  it  ? 
Even  Canute  set  down  his  own  foot  as  a  mark  for  the  sea. 
True  reverence  is  not  afraid  and  does  not  face  two  ways.  It 
thanks  God  for  the  wonderfully  augmented  apparatus  and  for 
the  intense,  sanctified  study  of  two  centuries.  Only  bourbon- 
ism  in  religion  thinks  that  God's  clocks  were  all  stopped  at  the 
time  of  the  Long  Parliament.  Even  Rome  has  new  popes.  De 
claring  them  infallible,  she  has  not  yet  decreed  them  non-mor 
tal  !  The  pillar  of  flame  is  still  vanguard  and  rereward  of  the 
church,  and  only  anchylosis — stiffening  of  the  joints — refuses 
to  march. 


AN  AGE  UNABLE  TO  WRITE  ITS  CREED,  UNFIT  TO  SAY  ONE      165 

That  stormy  Westminster  assembly  did  its  noble  best,  and 
the  liberty  of  the  gospel — "strenous  liberty,"  permits  and  in 
vites  us  to  a  blessing  we  greatly  need,  that  of  actually  telling 
what  we  actually  hold,  and  flinging  a  flag  to  all  the  winds  of 
heaven,  without  ambiguity  and  without  anachronism.  I  say  with 
Baxter,  "Do  not  make  more  necessary  articles  than  God  hath 
done.  Let  no  man's  writings  or  the  judgment  of  any  party  be 
made  that  test."  I  refer  to  the  wise  words  of  Calvin  (in  the 
fourth  book  of  his  Institutes)  concerning  church  councils. 
"When  the  voice  of  God  (one  has  well  said)  ceases  to  speak, 
silence  becomes  the  only  orthodoxy.  "Credo"  is  to  be  said  in 
the  present  tense,  not  the  imperfect,  nor  the  future-perfect  ; 
in  the  indicative  mood,  not  in  the  subjunctive  or  imperative  ! 
I  do  not  plead  for  the  apocopation  of  statement  ;  but  on  the 
contrary  for  one  so  clear  that  it  shall  tempt  no  one  toward 
demoralizing  sophistication  and  sublimation.  I  believe  there 
never  was  an  age  better  fitted  to  write  its  creed.  But  fit  or  not, 
and  under  the  scornful  challenges  to  our  sincerity,  it  is  pusil 
lanimous  not  to  be  willing  to  try.  A  period  that  is  unwilling 
to  write  its  real  creed  is  unworthy  to  say  any  !  Brief,  but  not 
bare;  ample,  but  not  prolix;  neither  indefinite  nor  drastic;  not 
pointing  like  a  rusted  vane  to  the  windward  of  yesterday; 
playing  neither  at  Procrustes  nor  at  Tantatus;  neither  with 
drawing  the  offense  of  the  cross,  nor  offering  fully  to  solve  all 
its  universal  meanings  —  such  a  creed  the  world  would  wel 
come  and  respect.  It  could  mightily  bless  the  Presbyterian 
Church  to  write  its  manifesto  of  what  it  was  prepared  to  live 
for  and  die  for  !  We  must  not  expect  more  of  a  creed  than  it 
can  do.  It  cannot  excuse  us  from  hard  thinking,  nor  from 
hard  work  in  carrying  it  out  to  the  proof  of  life.  I  hail  the 
movement  to  state  the  actual  present  faith  of  the  church  as  the 
sign  that  the  Omnipresent  and  Supreme  Spirit  is  leading  to 
ward  other  Pentecosts.  Mental  growing  pains  are  the  proof  of 
His  contact.  The  Rock  will  stand.  It  is  not  in  jeopardy. 
Neither  violent  foes  nor  timid  friends  can  shake  it.  God  will 


166  CREEDS 

teach  us  His  own  accent  if  we  will  ask  His  approval  only  and 
utter  all  that  He  gives.  This  alert,  sensitive,  confused,  and 
yet  earnest  and  plastic  age  so  greatly  needs  the  true  meaning 
of  the  genuine  Church  of  Christ,  that  I  long  to  see  all  ecclesi 
astical  impedimenta  sent  to  the  rear. 

The  plain  issue  is  so  mortal  and  so  painful  that  we  can  well 
afford  to  let  the  ecclesiast  and  the  logician  pass  by  so  that 
the  humane  Son  of  God  can  lift  and  bear  and  heal.  A  shorter 
statement  and  a  longer  arm  say  I,  for  one. 

Now,  "He  standeth  behind  our  wall.  He  looketh  in  at  the 
windows.  He  showeth  Himself  thro  the  lattice." 

Yet  a  little  while  and  "we  shall  know,  even  as  also  we  have 
been  known,"  Him  "in  whom  are  hid  all  the  treasures  both  of 
the  wisdom  and  knowledge  of  God,"  who  said  "I  am  come 
that  ye  might  have  life  and  more  abundantly;  "  Him,  "of  the 
increase  of  whose  government  there  shall  be  no  end." 

Thou  Holy,  Omnipresent  One, 

Of  God's  whole  Church  the  only  Guide! 
Thy  gifts,  at  Pentecost  begun, 

Thro  every  age  are  multiplied. 

Above  the  heads  of  fervent  men 

Still  burns  the  unconsuming  flame, 
And  Thou  dost  utterance  give  again 

To  speak  with  tongues  in  Jesus'  name. 

In  every  land  and  language,  Thou 

One  mighty  work  dost  still  increase, 
Perplexing  earthly  wisdom  now, — 

For  Babel  discords  giving  peace. 

Man's  spirit  is  Thy  lamp,  O  Light  ! 

Wherewith  to  search  the  inmost  part. 
Obedience  shall  not  walk  in  night, 

Nor  guiding  fail  the  craving  heart. 

Thy  Scripture  speaketh  not  in  vain 

Of  all  the  yearning  love  Thou  hast 
That  man  should  in  Thy  life  attain 

That  sky  no  doubt  can  overcast  ! 


EXPECTANT  ATTENTION  167 

We  trust  Thee,  God,  forever  near  ! 

Not  timid  lest  Thou  be  withdrawn  ; 
Each  century  makes  Thy  word  more  clear, 

And  shall,  till  day  eternal  dawn. 

We  dare  not  heed  another  hand, 

Nor  hark  to  any  lesser  voice, 
Give  Thou  Thy  truth  to  understand, 

And  make  that  truth  our  only  choice  ! 


partisanship  anfc  patriotism 

A  RESPONSE  AT  THE  "HARDWARE  DINNER" 

HOTEL  SAVOY,  NEW  YORK  CITY 

FEBRUARY  20,  1896 

Mr.  President  and  Fellow-citizens : 

It  was  a  remark  which  I  have  seen  attributed  to  Sydney 
Smith,  upon  his  leave-taking  with  a  departing  missionary, 
"Sir,  I  hope  you  will  agree  with  the  man  that  eats  you"  !  It 
always  struck  me  that  the  indigestibility  of  Jonah  must  have 
been  instructive  to  that  fish  whose  hospitality  was  so  unsuc 
cessful  and  so  brief.  Both  the  monster  and  the  medicine  must 
have  had  wiser  notions  as  to  quick  sails  and  small  prophets. 

A  little  while  ago  I  talked  behind  a  table  in  this  city  and 
did  not  finish  until  the  next  day  !  The  presiding  officer  in 
timated  that  I  was  the  last  man  who  should  speak  that  night, 
and  he  was  right.  I  began  by  congratulating  those  who  had 
already  left  and  then  asked  leave  to  print.  I  would  say  to  my 
fellow  morsels  who  are  appetizingly  displayed  at  this  counter, 
that  I  know  what  it  is  to  hold  my  thumbs  and  wonder  if  there 
is  to  be  any  time  left.  I  am  credibly  informed  that  the  Hol 
land  Society  is  responsible  for  first  running  a  dinner  with  a 
windmill.  The  fluidity  of  the  Dutch  Republic  may  have  much 
to  do  with  the  fluency  of  which  we  are  now  in  the  habit  at  sev 
eral  dollars  a  plate.  Men  used  to  take  naps  as  an  aid  to  diges 
tion,  now  they  hear  speeches.  Let  us  make  the  most  of  it 
while  it  lasts.  The  next  thing  will  be  something  else.  The 
peerless  lay-preacher  who  in  his  less  occupied  moments  pre 
sides  over  the  only  four  track  road  in  America  is  one  of  the 
chief  sponsors  for  this  decade  of  ventriloquism.  All  of  us  can 
admire  where  none  can  emulate  his  scintillating  facility.  Not 


COMMUNITY    OF    LIFE  169 

pretending  to  offer  you  anything  so  stimulating  in  its  efferves 
cence,  I  would  try  to  persuade  you  that  Apollinaris  is  as  good 
and  even  better  if  you  only  think  so!  I  am  a  preacher  and  a 
college  professor.  There  are  some  who  are  ready  to  assume 
that  preaching  and  teaching  make  a  man  an  impracticable,  a 
spinner  of  theories  without  real  relation  to  average  and  actual 
affairs.  If  there  are  those  here  who  think  that  preaching  is,  in 
Mr.  Huxley's  polite  phrase,  "  lunar  politics,"  and  that  a  col 
lege  is  a  school  of  cranks,  I  will  not  challenge  them  nor  argue 
the  point.  I  am  a  man.  I  am  an  American.  I  am  a  citizen. 
I  trust  that  I  am  a  Christian.  These  grounds  are  solid  lever 
age  for  my  present  purpose.  From  them  I  speak.  And  from 
these  I  say  that  he  is  no  true  minister  who  is  not  evermore 
busy  to  show  how  all  desirable  good  rests  in  the  recognition  of 
ultimate  principles,  and  who  is  not  urgent  to  compel  all  mat 
ters  of  custom  and  practice  to  testify  before  the  grand  jury  of 
conscience.  And  I  say  again  that  any  College  abuses  its  op 
portunity  if  it  does  not  seek  to  inspire  its  every  student  with 
ideals  which  are  most  practical  when  they  are  most  generous, 
and  to  base  him  broad  and  strong  with  the  conviction  that 
his  better  training  is  a  holy  trust  for  larger  manhood  and  for 
the  most  resolute,  intelligent  and  robust  citizenship.  It  is  the 
human  duty  of  us  all,  whatever  our  antecedents,  our  attain 
ment,  or  our  occupations,  to  help  make  this  a  larger  and  pleas- 
anter  world  for  every  man  that  is  in  it.  We  can  only  do  this 
as  our  love  steadily  becomes  more  dominant,  and  as  we  more 
and  more  widen  our  comprehension  of  that  high  relationship 
in  which  all  men  are  kin.  Not  the  word  "My,"  but  "Our," 
begins  the  Lord's  Prayer.  The  man  who  prays: 

"  Lord,  bless  me  and  my  wife, 
My  son  John  and  his  wife, 
Us  four  and  no  more,  Amen," 

that  man  does  not  pray  at  all,  and,  preaching  tho  it  may  be,  I 
say  that  a  man  who  does  not  pray  does  not  live!  In  this  state 
which  holds  the  ashes  of  John  Brown,  in  this  city,  which  keeps 
the  dust  of  Alexander  Hamilton  and  of  Ulysses  Grant,  you  are 


170  PARTISANSHIP  AND   PATRIOTISM 

assembled  in  the  name  of  a  common  business  interest.  This 
dining  emphasizes  a  commonalty,  a  community,  a  cooperative- 
ness  of  purpose.  It  is  what  men  have  in  common,  not  what 
they  have  in  severalty,  that  fulfils  their  life.  That  which  unites 
men  is  normal,  that  which  sunders  them  is  abnormal.  It  is 
not  because  we  are  states,  but  because  we  are  United  States, 
that  we  are  a  nation.  But  real  union  can  not  be  an  external 
device,  it  must  be  an  inward  truth. 

In  my  eagerness  to  affirm  a  great  principle,  as  wide  as  all 
life,  and  comprehensive  of  all  human  relation,  I  am  aware  of  a 
peril  of  becoming  too  abstract.  An  aged  woman  in  Alabama 
was  with  her  husband,  taking  her  first  ride  on  the  cars.  Her 
wonder  and  anxiety  increased  with  the  speed,  until  at  the 
top  of  her  astonishment  and  fear,  the  train  struck  a  long 
and  high  trestle.  With  a  scream  the  woman  bounded  to  her 
feet,  clutching  the  seat-back  before  her.  To  her  trembling 
obliviousness  of  all  else  it  seemed  that  the  cars  had  leaped  into 
space.  But  in  a  brief  moment  the  train  was  on  terra  firma 
once  more,  and  with  a  happy  shout  heard  thro  all  the  car,  she 
cried:  "Thank  Heaven,  she's  lit  again!"  Gentlemen,  if  for  a 
little  here  and  there,  I  seem  to  you  to  be  in  the  air,  I  assure  all 
who  have  tickets  for  this  trip  that  I  shall  try  not  to  leave  the 
rails! 

What  is  partisanship?  It  is  identification  with  a  part.  A 
party  is  a  section  —  bipartisanship  is  bisection.  To  see  no 
more  than  a  part  is  to  ignore  the  whole.  A  part  is  a  part  only. 
The  sum  of  parts  is  the  true  goal.  A  part  divorced  from  its 
fellow  parts  is  a  part  no  longer.  Your  arm  wrenched  from  its 
body  is  not  your  arm!  Parts  and  parties  are  means,  partner 
ship  is  the  end.  The  word  idiot  is  from  a  Greek  adjective 
meaning  selfish.  It  is  an  introspection  which  becomes  mental 
blindness.  Individuality,  by  exageration,  becomes  insanity. 
The  vice  of  selfishness  is  in  its  isolation  from  a  common  life. 
Its  secession  is  centrifugal  —  the  atom  resenting  the  universal 
law  of  unity.  In  the  heart  it  is  hate,  in  the  life  it  is  war,  in  es 
sence  it  is  hell.  The  bane  of  partisanship  in  whatever  realm 


PARTISAN    BIGOTRY 


171 


and  to  whatever  scale  is  in  its  arbitrary  exclusion  of  relation. 
Give  and  take, —  mutuality,  reciprocity, —  is  the  law  of  a  bal 
anced  life.  A  year  ago  Senator  John  Sherman  rose  in  his 
place  to  insist  that  "measures  for  the  relief  of  the  treasury 
should  be  viewed  from  a  higher  standpoint  than  partisanship," 
and  he  said:  "  If  I  were  to  think  of  party  or  party  advantage 
in  proposing  legislation  to  protect  the  government  credit,  I 
would  be  guilty  of  violating  my  oath  of  office."  Yes  and 
Amen.  But  if  that  be  true,  where  does  it  not  reach?  Well 
may  we,  in  such  days  as  these,  pray  in  the  words  of  the  Psalm, 
that  God  would  "teach  our  senators  wisdom  "  of  that  sort!  In 
Congress  or  out  of  it,  he  is  false  to  his  country  who  is  a  partisan 
first  and  a  patriot  afterward.  Each  of  us  is  guilty  of  a  treason 
able  narrowness  who  prefers  tactics  to  truth.  It  is  ungenerous 
and  degrading  to  refuse  to  recognize  the  excellences  and  per 
sistently  to  impugn  the  good  faith  of  those  who  differ  from  us 
in  their  philosophy.  The  bonds  of  civil  life  and  of  national 
loyalty  are  strained  and  broken  when  we  vituperate  our  mag 
istrates  merely  because  they  did  not  happen  to  have  the  pref 
erence  of  our  particular  votes.  Whoever  the  President  of  my 
country  is,  he  is  the  President  of  my  country  !  Two  things  de 
bauch  our  politics — one  is  money,  the  other  acrimony.  We  are 
all  of  us  too  much  Tillmanized.  The  man  who  thinks  to  exalt 
himself  merely  by  depreciating  others  and  who  glories  in  his 
hostilities  rather  than  his  friendships,  but  exhibits  his  own  semi- 
civilized  estate. 

So  long  and  so  far  as  we  consent  to  send  mere  party  merce 
naries  and  not  statesmen,  to  make  our  laws,  so  long  and  so  far 
will  bitterness  and  sectional  advantage  override  considerations 
of  that  weal  which  ought  always  to  precede  the  prestige  of  a 
faction.  We  are  all  to  much  the  constituents  of  a  false  theory, 
and  we  pay  the  penalties.  A  little  tyrant,  three  years  old,  was 
kicking  and  screaming  at  his  nurse.  It  was  on  the  cars,  and 
the  passengers  all  longed  to  spank  the  small  autocrat.  He 
wanted  a  wasp  that  crept  on  the  window  sill.  He  tried  to  take 
it.  The  nurse  caught  his  hand  and  said  coaxingly:  "Harry 


172  PARTISANSHIP  AND   PATRIOTISM 

mustn't  touch.  Bug  bite  Harry."  Harry  screamed  savagely 
and  began  to  kick  and  pound  the  nurse.  The  dozing  mother, 
without  opening  her  eyes  or  lifting  her  head,  said  sharply: 
"Why  do  you  tease  that  child  so,  Mary  ?  Let  him  have  what 
he  wants  at  once."  "But  ma'am,  it's  a — "  "Let  him  have  it, 
I  say."  Thus  encouraged  Harry  clutched  at  the  wasp  and 
caught  it.  The  scream  that  followed  brought  tears  of  joy  to 
the  passengers'  eyes.  The  mother  roused  again.  "Mary,"  she 
cried,  "let  him  have  it."  Mary  turned  in  her  seat  and  said, 
confusedly:  "He's  got  it,  ma'am." 

"  When  we  in  our  viciousness  grow  hard, 
The  wise  gods  seal  our  eyes.    *    *    * 
In  our  own  filth  drop  our  clear  judgments;  make  us 
Adore  our  errors;  laugh  at  us,  while  we  strut 
To  our  confusion." 

The  braggart  spirit  anywhere  is  absurd.  Some  little  school 
girls  (it  is  chronicled  of  Chicago)  were  discussing  their  clothes. 
"I've  a  lovely  new  dress,"  said  one,  "and  I'm  going  to  wear  it 
to  church  next  Sunday."  "Pooh  !"  said  another,  "I've  a  new 
hat,  and  I'm  going  to  wear  it  every  day."  "Well,"  said  a 
third,  "I've  got  heart  disease,  anyway  !"  The  two  were  mute 
with  envy.  She  was  a  Populist!  Must  minorities  always  be 
truculent  and  majorities  always  be  insolent?  Yes,  while  party 
is  put  above  principle:  No,  when  that  infamy  ends.  Unless 
one  is  willing  to  be  a  mere  political  fashionist  whose  german- 
silver  principles,  like  those  of  Bunyan's  By-Ends,  are  '  at  once 
harmless  and  profitable,'  he  may  not  prefer  clique  to  charac 
ter,  and  a  mean  success  to  an  honorable  defeat.  He  must  not 
confuse  pro  party  and  pro  patria,  nor  bow  and  cross  himself  at 
the  beck  of  a  civil  ultra-montanism  that  would  mother  devotion 
by  ignorance;  but  must  protest,  tho  he  be  but  one  contra  mun- 
dum,  and  vote  as  it  were  a  sacrament.  Better  'vote  in  the  air' 
than  vote  in  the  mud!  When  the  air  is  full  it  will  snow  vic 
tory.  To  heed  that  brazen  and  bitter  cry:  "Party,  right  or 
wrong,"  disgraces  the  soul  and  sears  the  vision.  Nothing  is 
more  immoral,  more  ruinous  of  personal  honor,  than  to  sue- 


POLITICAL    FARO-DEALERS  173 

cumb  to  that  social  coercion  of  the  'straight  ticket,'  which  has 
lost  most  of  its  terrors  for  men  whose  spines  are  not  bits  of 
wet  string  —  mere  boneless  marrow,  but  which  has  so  long  os 
tracized  independence,  and  in  the  name  of  Csesar  usurped  the 
things  of  God.  Softening  of  the  back  may  be  as  fatal  as  soft 
ening  of  the  brain.  I  am  thankful  to  live  in  a  commonwealth 
whose  vote  party  bell-wethers  so  often  fail  to  predict  by  a 
hundred  thousand  majority.  Electoral  unindependence  is 
political  serfdom.  The  discriminating  voter  is  evidently  in  the 
right  way  because  he  so  bothers  and  exasperates  bad  men. 

"When  none  will  sweat  but  for  promotion;"  when  dema 
gogs  "make  nice  of  no  vile  hold  to  stay  them  up;"  when 
legislators  are  often  so  notorious  that  self-respect  must  pray — 
"unto  their  assembly  mine  honor  be  not  thou  united;"  when 
"the  most  upright  is  as  a  thorn  hedge"  (combing  wool  from 
every  passing  sheep)  taking  toll  both  ways;  when  the  indirect 
but  debauching  bribe  of  patronage  would  make  office  but  a 
carcass  for  the  swiftest  vulture;  when  Truth  is  about  to  be  re- 
crucified  between  bipartisans,  no  decent  man  can  wash  his 
hands  with  Pilate  and  say  "I  am  innocent,  see  ye  to  it! " 

Of  course  statesmen,  like  Demetrius,  the  silversmith,  seeing 
the  craft  by  which  they  have  their  wealth  in  danger  to  be  set 
at  naught,  will  raise  the  specious  cry  "  Great  is  Diana" — always, 
"of  the  Ephesians." 

Of  course  honest  citizenship  will  be  resisted,  claw  and  tooth, 
by  those  "whose  mouths  (as  Lowell  said)  are  filled  with  the 
national  pudding,  or  watering  in  expectation  thereof."  All  the 
more  must  it  withstand  and  smite  that  lust  of  spoils  which 
would  wreck  the  stateliest  cause  to  make  flotsam  and  jetsam 
of  every  public  trust  from  president  to  poundmaster.  The 
belly  of  the  great  machine  "teems  with  armed  men!"  Left 
alone  within  the  walls,  they  will  after  dark  do  all  their  fell 
intent.  In  our  own  Troy,  that  revolver  at  the  polls,  finding  its 
victim,  was  a  danger  signal  that  only  deaf  souls  can  forget. 
'Party,  at  any  price,' is  that  which  prostitutes  republican  in 
stitutions,  and  with  the  malaria  of  its  ill  breath  poisons  us  all. 


174  PARTISANSHIP   AND    PATRIOTISM 

It  exhales  pestilence  and  breeds  corruption. 

Must  it  ever  be  the  task  of  Sisyphus  to  rescue  the  primary 
from  that  exploitation  by  hucksters  which  makes  the  individ 
ual  citizen  but  a  blank  proxy?  Shall  platforms  always  be 
mere  verbal  expedients  —  gull-baits, —  declarations  of  proposals 
that  are  not  purposes,  of  crafty  phrases  without  intent,  and 
whose  quotation  after  the  polls  close  is  considered  to  be  a 
roaring  farce?  Are  we  always  to  be  fed  on  platitudes?  Is  the 
originating  force  of  those  costly  campaigns,  which  ought 
always  to  advance  the  lines  of  loyal  purpose,  to  lodge  in 
the  councils  of  honest  and  earnest  citizens  fairly  and  freely 
assembled,  or  in  the  back  office  of  self  appointed  and  power- 
stealing  autocrats  who  with  ambi-sinister  facility  slit  the  throats 
of  cities,  impose  tribute  upon  firms  and  corporations,  or  amuse 
goggle-eyed  credulity  while  twitching  the  wires  that  work  re 
spectable  and  unsuspecting  men  as  marionettes? 

Is  the  selection  of  candidates  to  be  relegated  to  the  stage 
management  of  these  Punch-and-Judy  showmen? 

When  the  primary  and  the  caucus  and  the  convention  are 
cajoled,  intimidated,  packed,  perverted,  they  cease  to  become 
representative,  and  only  rivet  the  shackles  upon  those  who  in 
their  surrender  to  an  insolent  arrogation  of  proprietorship  re 
duce  themselves  to  servility  and  moral  impotence.  It  is  an 
impudence  that  makes  the  average  voter  a  puppet.  Dr.  Jekyll 
becomes  Mr.  Hyde.  The  voice  is  Trilby's,  but  the  song  is 
Svengali's  !  The  auction  of  the  voter  is  completed  in  "  the 
sale  of  law."  Moral  inertia,  lotus-eating  indifference,  crass 
selfishness,  a  materialistic  and  mercantile  theory  of  life; — 
these  things  "tend  downwards,  justify  despondency,  promote 
rogues,  defeat  the  lust,"  and  will,  just  so  long  as  voters  consent 
to  be  shovelled,  or  to  be  done  up  in  express  packages  to  be 
delivered  C.  O.  D.,  at  owner's  risk  !  Poor  Sinbad !  Whoever 
those  possible  nominees  of  1896  may  be  whom  these  steerers 
and  confidence  men  least  want,  them  the  respectable  part  of 
this  company  most  is  for  ! 

How  the  municipality  problem  lours  with  portent,  in  all  its 


ULTRAMONTANE    FINANCE  175 

subordinate  details  of  drunkenness,  lechery,  bribery,  simony 
and  sleek  coupon-cutting  apathy.  Kill  me  that  last  and  I  will 
render  you  the  heads  of  all  the  rest ! 

When  shall  we  adequately  resist  the  intolerant  imposture 
and  intolerable  duress  of  underlings  and  send  truly  represent 
ative  men  to  the  councils  of  the  nation?  Think  of  a  state  that 
owned  a  George  William  Curtis,  that  contains  a  St.  Clair 
McKelway  and  an  Elihu  Root,  persistently  preferring  some  of 
the  second-rate  partisans  who  have  strutted  into  the  United 
States  Senate  !  I  would  that  I  could  make  these  words  strike 
and  detonate  like  percussion  shells  !  We  need  unconditional 
men,  indomitable  souls,  who  shall,  to  all  that  would  wheedle 
or  coerce  them,  utter  a  rigid — 'No!  Patriotism  first,  Party 
afterward.'  We  are  grateful  for  the  noble  few  who  are  such  as 
ennoble  their  constituents  in  refusing  the  pettings  of  ring 
leaders  and  the  trammels  of  mediocrity,  and  in  living  toward 
their  parties  that  fine  sentiment  which  the  cavalier  of  Lovelace 
utters  to  his  Lucasta, — 

"  I  could  not  love  thee,  dear,  so  much 
Loved  I  not  honor  more." 

Never  did  a  time  more  need  noble  leadership.  Must  we 
always  flout  our  living  prophets,  and  ever  be  lamenting  a  dead 
Lincoln  ?  Must  the  witchcraft  of  foul  selfishness  always 
stupefy  and  strangle  us  with  its  incantations?  Worthy  thought 
will  be  incarnate  in  worthy  men  when  we  summon  such.  As 
yet  we  do  not  seek  them.  We  consent  to  partisan  dishonor. 
"  Democracy  can  be  justified  only  in  so  far  as  it  furnishes  the 
most  effective  method  of  securing  wise  and  just  rulers:  but  in 
a  democracy  this  end  can  only  be  attained  in  so  far  as  every 
citizen  fulfils  his  civic  obligations."  All  peoples  have  as  good 
a  government  and  as  good  governors  as  they  demand,  no 
better.  All  improvement  begins  in  new  convictions.  The 
best  things  are  offered  only  to  the  best  men.  Our  theory  con 
fronts  us  with  our  condition.  At  present  sectionalism  and 
class  legislation  hold  us  up  at  every  turn,  and  localism  laughs 
at  the  general  good.  We  think  that  law  can  repeal  arithme- 


176  PARTISANSHIP   AND    PATRIOTISM 

tic.  A  great  mob  of  inflationists  clamors  for  more  money.  By 
an  artifice  it  would  set  a  fictitious  value  upon  silver  and  ask  the 
world  to  believe  that  50  cents  is  100.  At  that  rate  all  the  sil 
ver  of  the  Earth  would  come  in  here  "by  telegram  at  our  ex 
pense."  Why  not  declare  that  a  bushel  of  wheat  is  a  dollar, 
that  a  barrel  of  oil  is  two  dollars,  build  elevators  and  tanks, 
take  the  whole  product,  and  offer  warehouse  certificates  for 
these  stores  as  money  at  this  fanciful  rate?  Money  has  either 
an  intrinsic  value  or  an  extrinsic.  These  are  not  to  be  con 
fused.  If  the  present  light-weight  dollar,  with  its  counterfeit 
of  Liberty  and  its  hypocritical  profession  of  faith  (for  a  false 
balance  is  an  abomination,  and  sanctimony  is  poor  currency) — 
if  such  a  dollar,  of  which  the  Treasury  has  300,000,000  that  no 
one  wants  at  the  price  asked, —  if  such  a  dollar's  value  is  ex 
trinsic,  16  to  I  is  too  much,  by  16;  if  intrinsic  it  is  too  little 
by  13.  If  we  as  sellers  at  that  rate,  would  try  to  foist  an 
anachronism  upon  the  world,  it  won't  buy:  if  we  are  buyers  at 
that  rate  it  will  joyfully  accommodate  us  with  its  last  ounce. 

Remember,  Gentlemen,  that  those  who  are  so  eager  to 
double  the  coinage  value  of  silver  over  the  actual  bullion 
value,  are  those  who  have  silver  to  sell  !  In  comparison  with 
those  who  listen  to  the  invitations  of  these  silver  sirens,  Alad 
din's  wife  was  astute  !  Why  not  coin  copper  free  at  sixteen 
to  one,  and  so  'boom'  an  American  product?  Such  a  chimera 
would  indeed  make  us  all  money-maniacs  and  America  a  ver 
itable  asylum  of  all  nations  !  It  would  be  no  less  "woolly"  to 
assert  that  eighteen  inches  is  a  yard.  England  would  gladly 
sell  to  us  at  such  a  rate,  she  would  not  buy.  The  whole  thing 
illustrates  the  great  truth  that  '  every  man  has  his  price'  —  who 
is  for  sale?  I  do  not  object  to  a  metal — I  object  to  a  ratio 
that  is  a  lie.  "Sixteen  to  one,"  is  obsolete.  To  have  two  val 
ues  for  a  dollar  is  a  fatuity  over  which  I  feel  like  the  preacher 
who,  standing  in  the  pulpit  of  a  son  who  had  gone  daft  over 
ecclesiastical  millinery,  took  for  his  text—  "Lord,  have  mercy 
upon  my  son,  for  he  is  a  lunatic  !  "  Inflation  is  balloonacy. 
A  nation  which  in  two  supreme  crises  so  grandly  determined 


NOT   TWO   STANDARDS    OF    RIGHT  177 

to  be  free,  shall  never  blandly  consent  to  be  dishonest ;  which 
in  such  a  seven-heated  furnace  learned  the  sixth  command 
ment  and  the  seventh,  shall  not  repudiate  the  fourth  at  the 
bidding  of  rum,  nor  the  eighth  at  the  bidding  of  silver  mines. 
At  last  the  tenth  shall  round  into  the  first,  and  "Thou  shalt  not 
covet"  shall  touch  "Thou  shalt  have  no  other  God."  Happy 
is  the  people  that  is  in  such  a  case  !  How  far  class  envy  can 
go  is  shown  in  the  artificial  provisions  of  that  preposterous 
inter-state  commerce  act  which  at  present  is  prostrating  the 
greatest  industry  of  the  land,  flinging  scores  of  roads  into  the 
hands  of  receivers  and  robbing  the  incomes  of  numberless 
employes,  and  of  widows  and  orphans  whose  savings  it  slaugh 
ters.  Its  provisions  are  mainly  based  upon  an  envious  partic 
ularism  which  is  both  sumptuary  and  socialistic. 

But  I  forget  that  I  am  only  a  country  parson,  and  I  preach 
too  long.  You  noticed  yesterday  that  the  '  Cave  of  the  Winds ' 
had  gone  dry  !  I  will  speak  of  Patriotism.  Pater  means  father, 
the  Patria  is  the  fatherland.  Patriotism  is  brotherhood,  and  it 
has  no  limits.  As  a  family  that  seeks  only  its  own  advantage 
is  a  curse  to  its  community,  so  too,  a  nation  that  seeks  only  its 
own  good  is  a  curse  to  the  world,  and  ultimately  to  itself. 
Shall  there  ever  be  a  truly  Christian  nation  ?  Does  liberty 
only  mean  "  our  liberty  ?"  If  the  ethics  of  the  gospel  are  not 
fit  to  be  national,  they  are  not  fit  to  be  personal.  But  how 
many  nations  have  learned  the  ten  commandments,  let  alone 
the  beatitudes  ?  Patriotism  is  but  a  geographical  partisanship 
if  its  ultimate  notions  are  unfraternal  to  mankind.  Too  many 
in  their  handling  of  that  word  illustrate  what  the  recent  Cen 
tury  has  described  as  "  the  effect  of  a  large  idea  upon  a  small 
mind."  "Make  me  pure  (prayed  a  little  girl)  make  me  as 
pure  as  baking  powder !"  We  have  lately  been  discussing  the 
merits  of  Royal  baking  powder  and  Cleveland's.  But  the 
question  of  which  of  these  contains  the  least  alum  and  the 
most  force  is  not  so  important  as  that  we  should  seek  to  have 
all  the  world  join  us  at  the  knees  of  God  in  that  petition: 
"  Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread  !  "  Partisanship  is  sectional, 


178  PARTISANSHIP   AND    PATRIOTISM 

patriotism  is  national;  nay,  it  is  international.     Whatever  may 
be  my  secondary  and  subordinate  relations,  primarily  I  am  a 
1  man.     Anything  less  than  loyalty  to  the  whole  cause  of  man 
kind  is  secession  from  God. 

"  The  peoples,  Lord,  the  peoples, 
Not  thrones  and  crowns,  but  men." 

"  Have  we  not  all  one  father  ? "  As  patriotism  is  above 
party,  so  is  humanity  above  diplomacy.  "  Let  not  thy  country 
(said  fine  old  Sir  Thomas  Browne) — let  not  the  law  of  thy 
country  be  the  non-ultra  of  thine  honesty."  What  are  the 
questions  of  Venezuela  and  the  Suez  canal,  what  is  even  the 
harsh  question  of  Cuba,  by  the  side  of  the  world  disgrace  over 
Armenia ! 

Thank  God  the  American  protest  has  been  made.  Shame 
to  England  that  her  tumescent  Lord  Salisbury  passes  by  on 
the  other  side.  Shame  to  all  alleged  Christian  nations  that 
there  is  not  a  new  crusade  to  abolish  that  hideous  and  pirati 
cal  power  whose  cimetar  is  the  corrollary  of  its  Koran.  Oh, 
for  another  Cromwell,  Peter  the  Hermit,  Charles  Martel,  to 
'  smite  utterly  this  cruel  absolutism.  Oh,  for  another  Coeur  de 
Lion.  What  is  an  empty  sepulchre  whence  the  Lord  of  life  is 
risen  to  the  perishing  myriads  for  whom  he  came  !  God  of 
armies,  bare  Thy  holy  arm  against  that  livid,  curdled  and  pu- 
trescent  misgovernment  that  sets  its  crescent  above  the  city  of 
Constantine,  and  seduces  nations  to  forget  that  watchword  of 
the  cross,  In  Hoc  signo  vinces !  How  can  any  sneer  at  the 
brave  words  from  Washington  that  invite  a  new  holy  alliance 
against  that  malign  despotism.  There  might  be  a  thanksgiv 
ing  dinner  of  the  world  if  Russia  and  England  would  cease 
their  flatulent  haggling  over  the  wishbone  !  Would  that  the 
bleeding 'Eastern  questions'  were  delivered  not  only  out  of 
the  hand  of  the  uncircumcised  Philistine,  but  also  out  of  the 
paw  of  the  Lion  and  of  the  Bear ! 

I  for  one  am  grateful  for  that  pertinent  apothegm  of  the 
Brooklyn  Eagle  —  it  was  indeed  eagle-eyed — "What  is  funda- 


THE    IGNOBILITY   OF   SELFISHNESS  I7g 

mentally  right  is  also  profoundly  wise  !  "  Oh,  the  cowardice 
of  the  ledger  and  the  bank  book  —  "letting  I  dare  not,  wait 
upon,  I  would  !"  It  refills  a  religious  cult,  emptied  of  Christ 
ianity,  with  that  old  exclusive  provincialism  which  slew  Christ, 
and  makes  his  house  of  prayer  for  all  nations  into  a  stock 
exchange ! 

Gentlemen,  America  is  providential.  She  is  adapted  to  be 
an  almoner  and  an  arbiter  of  nations.  Let  us  interpret  destiny 
by  duty,  honor  by  service,  opportunity  by  responsibility,  and  so 

"Set  up  a  mark  of  everlasting  light 
Above  the  howling  senses  ebb  and  flow," 

that  we  shall  enter  into  the  task  and  so  alone  into  the  triumph 
of  the  Son  of  Man  !  For  vox  recti  populi,  vox  Dei  ! 

Let  us  lift  the  non-partisan,  the  truly  patriotic  standard  both 
of  national  righteousness  and  of  a  world-wide  sympathy,  of  the 
true  partnership  of  man  under  the  one  paternity  of  God.  Let 
Rome  stand  for  force  and  statute,  Greece  for  culture,  Germany 
for  learning,  France  for  art,  England  for  diplomacy  and 
aggrandizement,  all  these  for  war;  and  we,  in  God's  name,  for 
character,  for  inter-national  and  super-political  justice,  for 
real  freedom,  and  for  the  ever-nearer  dominion  of  the  Prince 
of  Peace. 

Domain,  ancestry,  heritage,  however  much  —  we  are  not 
merely  to  follow,  but  to  fulfill  our  fathers,  "  God  having  pro 
vided  some  better  thing  for  us,  that  they  without  us  should 
not  be  made  perfect." 

Here  lies  the  nobility  of  both  men  and  of  nations.  Here  is 
truth  that  has  no  barrier  of  river  or  mountain,  no  bound  of  sea 
or  shore.  All  of  us  for  America  and  for  all  America,  and 
America  for  all  mankind ! 


Gbe  distinctive  function  of  tbe  College 

REMARKS  BEFORE  THE  UNIVERSITY  CLUB 
OF  BUFFALO,  NEW  YORK 
MARCH  3,  1 


Gentlemen  of  the  University  Club:  You  are  not  associated 
under  this  title  by  caprice  or  mere  casual  impulse.  You  began 
and  you  continue  this  fellowship  for  the  sufficient  reason  that 
you  have  certain  important  common  interests  which  by  organ 
ization  you  desire  to  proclaim  and  to  promote. 

You  affirm,  as  do  similar  bodies  in  now  so  many  of  our 
major  cities,  the  accordant  aims  and  the  substantial  good  will 
of  all  men  liberally  educated.  You  also  affirm  your  joint  re 
lation  to  the  public  good. 

Your  two  hundred  and  fifty  members,  in  representation  of 
fifty  colleges,  is  no  meagre  showing,  and  it  is  a  high  credit,  as 
it  ought  also  to  become  a  broad  benefit,  to  the  city  which  is 
the  third  in  our  preeminent  state,  and  in  the  nation  the  eleventh. 

Each  of  us  here  loves  well  his  own  academic  cradle,  and  is  a 
perpetual  debtor  to  the  hand  that  rocked  it.  Each  of  us  cher 
ishes  the  songs  of  his  own  college  fireside.  But  we  are  all  of 
kin  and  bear  a  family  likeness.  The  several  Alma  Matres  to 
whom  we  owe  our  baccalaureate  birthrights  are  one  large  and 
loving  sisterhood  and  we  are  warm  first  cousins.  We  are  the 
alumni  (or  nurslings)  of  one  grandmother,  and  her  name  is 
2o<£ta.  While  the  timbers  stand  that  uphold  the  great  an 
cestral  and  homestead  roof  of  American  education,  may  Wis 
dom  be  justified  of  her  children  !  The  tie  which  is  expressed 
by  such  a  sodality  or  guild  as  this,  both  confesses  and 
strengthens  a  partnership  of  competency,  of  aspiration,  and  of 
purpose. 


A   SHARED    OBLIGATION  l8l 

The  relatively  large  ratio  of  influence  so  far  exerted  in  our 
land  by  its  College  men  is  a  commanding  fact,  too  often  neg 
lected.  To  us  it  should  be  full  not  of  vapid  self-praise  but  of 
ardent  stimulations.  It  is  a  commission,  and  it  lays  upon  every 
true-souled  College  man  a  thrilling  noblesse  oblige.  It  is  a 
badge  that  is  morally  a  pledge, —  a  pledge  that  we  alone  can 
vindicate  and  that  we  alone  can  smirch  and  degrade.  This 
throng  is  a  part  of  that  providential  endowment  of  skilled  and 
equipped  manhood  which  should  and  shall  have  great  share  in 
meeting  the  inevitable  and  impending  battles  of  the  age,  and, 
in  Truth's  name,  in  turning  them  into  victories  beyond  prece 
dent  or  imagination.  The  beneficiaries  of  singular  privilege,  we 
are  bound  to  be  the  exponents  of  singular  power.  The  benefit 
we  partake  is  ours  not  to  hoard  or  squander  but  to  transmit. 
We  are  bound  not  only  to  resent  but  to  refute  the  little  sneers 
that  impugn  scholarship  as  tending  toward  either  the  impract 
ical  or  the  unsympathetic.  Our  banners  many  but  our  flag 
one,  without  selfishness  or  schism  let  all  our  varied  colors  blend 
in  one  prismatic  white.  Echoing  the  spirit  of  that  gallant 
greeting  of  England's  poet, — 

"  Come  to  us,  love  us,  and  make  us  your  own, 
For  Saxon  or  Dane  or  Norman  we, 
Teuton  or  Celt,  or  whatever  we  be, 
We  are  each  all  Dane  in  our  welcome  of  thee, 

Alexandra  !  — 

so  be  our  loyal  acclaim  to  the  princess  Duty. 

I  said,  Noblesse  oblige.  That  may  be  the  mere  boast  of  titular 
precedence,  of  hereditary  assumption.  But  where  the  nobility 
is  essential,  moral,  genuine,  not  the  freak  and  accident  of 
birth;  where  it  stands  for  character  not  class,  it  is  not  a  duress 
but  a  consecration.  The  real  "  war-lord "  never  poses  nor 
struts.  He  is  a  captain  because  not  bellicose,  and  imperial 
because  not  imperious  —  chief  because  the  servant  of  all. 
With  no  European,  but  with  a  royally  American  accent,  in  the 
aristocracy  of  democracy,  true  nobility  affirms  itself  not  in  a 


182  THE  DISTINCTIVE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

clannish  condescension  but  in  a  humane  and  therefore  manly 
social  creed.  So  meant,  it  binds  all  better  ability  to  quit  a 
cloistered  intellectual  luxury,  and  to  give  itself  to  better  the 
world.  So  meant,  its  claim  is  verified  in  the  generosity  of  un 
stinted  helps.  For  just  as  agriculture  is  not  for  the  field's 
sake,  but  for  the  harvest's,  so  mental  culture  is  for  human  use 
and  social  result.  More  strength,  more  strain.  More  mind, 
more  man. 

It  is  by  recognizing  such  ends,  and  by  combining  toward 
them  the  abilities  and  impulses  otherwise  scattered,  and  so 
less  efficient,  that  clubs  like  this  are  to  warrant  their  name  and 
propriety.  Your  social  pleasure,  if  it  is  to  be  worthy,  must 
move  toward  the  moral  alliance  and  augment  of  personal  con 
victions  concerning  the  questions  of  this  decade  of  the  passing 
century,  with  its  huge  pride  and  need,  its  dangers  and  its  sus 
ceptibilities.  Organization,  as  an  end,  is  mere  addition  —  as  a 
means  toward  ends  that  lie  beyond  individual  strengths,  it  is 
multiplication.  Surely  there  are  problems  enough,  civic  and 
national,  moral  and  mental,  to  make  royal  demands  upon  all 
taught  and  trained  citizens,  and  to  constrain  such  to  draw  to 
gether  and  to  stand  together.  A  really  educated  manliness  is 
sacred  to  service  and  sworn  to  the  general  good,  and  the 
ethical  compulsions  of  such  an  election  and  calling  are  as 
beautiful  to  willing  souls  as  they  are  austere  toward  the  re 
luctant  and  the  recluse.  The  high  summons  that  implies  high 
tasks  carries  in  its  left  hand  to  those  who  reject  such  a  sum 
mons  the  stern  penalty  of  missing  these  tasks. 

You,  gentlemen,  are  distinctively  and  representatively  Col 
lege  men.  "University"  is  to  be  sure  more  comprehensive: 
but  in  this  connection  it  is  metonomy.  Not  as  Masters  of  Arts, 
or  of  Science, —  not  as  Doctors  of  Philosophy,  Divinity,  Lit 
erature,  or  Laws:  but  as  Batchelors  are  you  here  bound  and 
blended.  The  A.  B.  degree  is  your  common  ground.  Those 
distinguish,  this  unites.  Whatever  else  you  have,  you  are  here 
because  you  have  this.  Its  relation  to  the  rest  is  basilar.  It 


THE  DISTINCTION  OF  THE  A.  B.  DEGREE  183 

still  carries  with  it  the  most  of  prima  facie  proof.  Less  than 
any  other  title  has  it  been  tarnished  and  deteriorated  and 
cheapened  by  brevet  use.  The  chevron  often  certifies  more 
than  does  the  epaulet.  Let  the  A.  B.  be  reserved  from  mis 
cellaneous  bestowal.  To  use  a  little  Latin,  let  us  say  the  nunc 
pro  tune  should  be  a  quid  pro  quo,  and  should  be  given  only  for 
the  stiff  four  years  which  it  crowns,  or  for  their  most  genuine 
equivalent. 

To  a  company,  then,  of  those  who  primarily  are  Batchelors 
of  Arts,  and  whose  coordination  founds  upon  that  fact,  I  make 
the  theme  of  these  remarks  (which  are  stipulated  to  be  but 
conversational) — The  distinctive  function  of  the  College,  as  such. 
I  shall  not  be  misunderstood  to  seek  an  adroit  obtruding  of 
my  own  environment,  nor  to  be  doing  any  indirect  advertising, 
when  I  speak  from  the  view  point  which  that  environment  has 
furnished  me.  If  at  some  tangents  I  shall  challenge  some  of 
the  views  here  held,  you  must  permit  me  to  be  frank  rather 
than  diplomatic.  These  opinions  are  not  polemical,  nor  are 
they  deprecatory.  You  will  I  am  sure  allow  me  an  area  of 
the  freest  speech. 

The  College  is  a  distinct  and  indigenous  thing  in  American 
education,  with  firm  and  clear  limitations.  It  has  history  — 
deep  roots,  wide  branches,  fair  and  abundant  fruitage.  It 
stands  between  Academy  and  University  and  is  neither.  It 
advances  the  one  and  furnishes  the  other.  Handling  much 
material  that  will  never  attain  the  University,  it  should  have, 
and,  in  its  first  class  types  it  has,  a  certain  completeness  of  its 
own.  During  the  present  experimental  stage  of  our  Univers 
ities,  with  so  much  that  is  inchoate  and  heterogenous,  the 
College  may  well  assert  its  own  time-honored  status,  and  re 
fuse  either  to  be  diverted  or  misvalued.  Our  American  fond 
ness  for  novelty  and  bigness,  for  two-story  fronts  on  one-story 
buildings,  needs  curbing  rather  than  coddling,  and  the  sincere 
and  dutiful  College  should  not  be  dazed  or  dazzled  by  the 
glamour  of  a  polysyllable. 


184  THE  DISTINCTIVE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

I  do  not  speak  of  the  lust  for  this  top-title  which  has  deluded 
some  inferior  schools,  (not  all  of  them  in  the  West),  schools 
whose  actual  product  is  sometimes  not  above  that  of  a  med 
ium  grade  high-school,  and  whose  intellectual  frame  is  largely 
"front  door  and  back  yard." 

A  University,  truly  such,  is  a  school  where  the  science  of 
subjects  (and  by  implication  many  subjects)  is  explored  to 
the  utmost.  In  general  the  aim  of  the  University  is  the  sub 
jects  taught  and  the  man  as  related  to  these:  the  aim  of  the 
College  is  the  man  taught  and  the  subjects  as  related  to  him. 
President  Seth  Low  puts  it  clearly  in  saying  —  "A  College  is 
conceived  of  as  a  place  of  liberal  culture,  a  University  as  a 
place  for  specialization  based  upon  liberal  culture."  The  two 
functions  should  not  be  confused,  nor  either  disparaged.  They 
are  in  different  tiers  and  to  compound  them  is  an  awkward 
compromise.  A  given  corporation  may  change  from  one  to 
the  other,  but  not  by  a  mere  change  of  title,  only  by  an  inward 
change  of  scope  and  emphasis  and  method. 

Our  American  Universities  are  now,  most  of  them,  in  transi 
tion.  Their  evolution  is  adolescent  and  incomplete.  Harvard 
is  feeling  her  way  along  a  process  of  elimination.  Her  dis 
cussion  of  the  reduction  of  her  A.  B.  courses  is  one  step  in  her 
palingenesis.  She  may  take  the  full  step  now  or  later.  She 
will  take  it.  Taking  it  she  must  logically  and  naturally  go 
further.  In  purposing  to  be  a  University  pure  and  simple  she 
decomplicates  herself  from  the  College  idea.  Granting,  as  an 
outsider  must,  the  definiteness  of  her  aim,  that  it  is  rational 
and  not  capricious,  it  must  be  understood  as  a  direct  move 
toward  final  and  complete  Universityhood.  But  even  were 
that  not  yet  the  avowed  or  the  intended  end  of  her  diminution 
of  A.  B.  work,  it  is  the  proper  and  inevitable  end. 

This  must  decrease  that  that  may  increase.  The  shrinkage 
must  match  the  growth.  Harvard  began  by  translating  her 
sub-University  work  in  the  terms  of  specialistic  study.  She  is 
now  proceeding  toward  what  she  therein  elected. 

She  will  be  a  great  advanced  school—  "  Fair  Harvard",  still : 


THE  NARROWNESS  OF  UNCULTIVATED  SPECIALISM  185 

but  she  will  cease  to  be  Harvard  College.  Such  a  displace 
ment  of  the  College  purpose  and  function  by  the  University 
purpose  and  function  establishes  nothing  save  its  own  fact.  It 
proves  preference,  not  superiority.  We  trust  that  Harvard  will, 
when  entirely  and  completely  a  University,  continue  that  re 
nown  which  she  attained  and  in  which  she  throve  when  entire 
ly  a  College.  This  is  her  q.  e.  d. 

There  must  be  Universities  and  there  must  be  Colleges.  Let 
each  school  make  its  own  election,  consistently  and  com 
pletely,  and  do  its  chosen  work.  Let  neither  face  two  ways. 

I  claim  the  liberty  to  speak  for  one  College — a  College  that 
believes  in  its  own  function  as  one  to  be  magnified  and  main 
tained —  appreciating  and  testifying  the  separateness  of  discip 
linary  instruction  from  that  which  is  technical  and  professional. 
This  is  a  work  to  be  done,  and  the  Colleges  are  to  do  it,  with 
out  pretension  or  apology. 

Their  contribution  is  of  a  kind  that  is  indispensable  not  only 
toward  a  generous  broadening  and  basing  of  manhood,  but 
also  indispensable  to  give  to  those  particular  schools  assem 
bled  in  the  Universities  such  material  as  they  themselves  can 
not  best  prepare  either  in  quality  or  in  abundance.  I  say 
quality,  advisedly  and  boldly,  assured  that  the  College  course 
is  best  interpreted  and  illustrated  in  the  College  that  stands 
independently,  unnarrowed  by  the  influence  which,  when  it  ad 
joins  an  elaborate  University  scheme  works  down  to  pervert 
even  the  course  in  Arts  from  its  broad  function  into  a  mere 
specialization.  The  functions  of  the  disciplines  presupposed 
in  the  A.  B.  degree,  and  of  the  investigations  leading  to  higher 
degrees  are  decidedly  unlike.  The  processes  have  different 
conclusions.  One  should  make  iron  into  steel,  the  other  make 
steel  into  tools. 

Specialization  not  "based  upon  liberal  culture"  attempts  to 
put  a  fine  edge  on  pot-iron.  The  man  who  is  but  a  specialist 
and  has  no  general  aptitude  is  absurdly  narrow  and  is  less 
capable  even  in  his  own  sphere.  No  Cyclops  is  lovely.  Poly- 


186  THE  DISTINCTIVE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

phemus  may  crush  Acis,  but  he  never  can  win  Galatea.  The 
winning  man  must  be  a  wide  man.  High  wall  exacts  broad 
sub-structure,  or  it  will  topple.  The  world's  available  men 
must  be  trained  to  be  alert,  supple,  adaptive — to  have  an  in 
telligent  appreciation  of  various  realms, —  to  be  well-begun  in 
many  things,  that  so  they  may  each  both  select  his  own  life- 
specialty  and  understand  its  important  bearings.  Synthetic 
men,  who  have  minds  and  hearts  for  the  ensemble  of  life  are 
quite  as  needful  to  the  world's  weal  as  are  expert  partialists. 
Per  centum  of  the  population  more  of  them  are  necessary. 
Success  then  to  the  course  that  aims  to  make  its  student  great 
in  one  thing:  but  success  also  to  the  course  that  makes  him 
good  in  many. 

Specialism  is  so  important  that  it  needs  to  be  defended  from 
its  own  dangers.  A  minister  who  is  only  a  theologian,  a  doc 
tor  who  knows  medicine  and  no  more,  a  lawyer  whose  whole 
library  wears  sheepskin,  a  teacher  who  is  only  a  pedant  (not 
truly  a pedagog,  because  he  prefers  books  to  boys),  a  speaker 
who  is  only  a  declaimer,  a  high  magistrate  who  is  only  a  poli 
tician, —  all  these  are  narrow  and  narrowing.  They  have  edge 
without  back-blade,  and  they  are  "by  their  means  defeated  of 
their  ends."  They  are  too 'hollow  ground.'  On  the  contrary, 
one  who,  with  only  a  general  training,  attempts  a  specialist's 
tasks  will  prove  an  empiric,  and  not  an  expert. 

The  world  wants  men  who  have  both  temper  and  point. 
Both.  Neither  by  itself.  You  do  not  make  a  lancet  out  of  a 
brad,  nor  shave  with  a  barrel  hoop.  Technical  study  if  it  is 
not  balanced  by  wide  interest  tends  toward  a  petulant  and 
paltry  conceit. 

A  large  introduction  to  philosophy,  history,  literature,  law; 
a  speaking  acquaintance  with  many  sciences,  physical  and 
political;  a  good  grounding  in  logic  and  ethics — such  dis 
cipline  both  in  its  matter  and  its  method  opens  wide  the  mind 
toward  the  large  world  of  things  and  thoughts. 

To  know  anything  at  all  well  one  must  know   it   as   related 


MATURITY  A  FACTOR  OF  POWER  187 

and  horizoned.  Elisha  Gray  the  inventor  of  the  tel-autograph 
told  me  of  an  interview  with  a  recent  product  of  a  course  in 
that  present  fad  of  tyros, —  electrical  engineering.  "  I  suppose 
you  know  all  about  electricity,"  said  Dr.  Gray.  "  I  ought  to 
(was  the  reply  of  the  youth  of  twenty-one)  I've  studied  nothing 
else  for  three  years."  "Ah,  (said  the  inventor)  I've  studied 
electricity  forty  years,  and  I  feel  that  I  know  nothing  about  it!" 

Specialism  is  to  be  forefended  from  pedantry  by  that  earlier 
patient  exercise  and  enlargement  of  many  faculties  which 
promotes  both  competency  and  modesty.  At  a  period 
like  ours  — a  period  that  calls  for  the  ripest  and  readiest 
power,  there  is  small  occasion  to  undervalue  and  skip  that 
which  widens  and  matures  the  whole  man.  So  the  College,  in 
situ,  may  well  demur  to  have  its  demonstrated  value  assailed 
or  patronized  by  the  University  in  transitu.  And  yet  the  Col 
lege  has  had,  and  has,  its  due  time  begrudged  and  its  true 
calling  deprecated  by  many  coteries  of  supercilious  technicists. 
But  what  sound  regard,  I  ask,  toward  advanced  courses  and 
their  high  exactions  is  that  which  is  willing  to  take  half-pud 
dled  material,  and  thro  a  foreshortened  disciplinary  prepara 
tion  to  rush  men  into  the  laboratory  and  the  seminar? 

Poor  pulp,  poor  paper — no  matter  how  fancifully  water 
marked,  highly-calendered,  and  daintily-packed.  A  youth  of 
eighteen  may  be  wet  with  a  College  coursjs  in  two  years:  but 
he  cannot  be  saturated  in  less  than  four.  We  know  of  men 
'dropping  out  of  College '  and  dropping  into  special  courses: 
but  let  us  be  reminded  that  nothing  ever  drops  up! 

The  best  is  none  too  good  for  the  imperious  exactions  of  a 
time  that  sifts  and  selects  its  instruments  with  impartial  sever 
ity  and  that  sends  to  the  auction-room  all  'seconds.' 

Over-haste  must  spill  itself  halfway,  and  arrive  empty. 
Men  who  graduate  Sophomores  are  apt  to  remain  such.  One 
there  was  who,  tho  the  world  was  dying  for  Him,  waited,  until 
He  was  thirty,  to  begin  to  save  it,  growing  into  that  wisdom 
and  stature  which  were  His  equipment  for  complete  ministry 


188  THE  DISTINCTIVE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

and  without  which  He  would  not  begin.  First  Nazareth,  then 
Jerusalem. 

However  I  may  traverse  the  opinions  of  those  who  are  so 
graciously  following  me,  I  must  be  permitted  to  say  resolutely 
that  I  believe  it  to  be  a  demonstrable  error  to  attempt  to  com 
bine  College  and  University  into  one  school. 

As  an  Academy  should  not  try  to  be  a  College,  so  a  College 
should  not  try  to  be  a  University. 

As  a  College  is  handicapped  by  trying  to  include  an  Academy, 
so  a  University  is  handicapped  by  trying  to  include  a  College. 

The  sphere,  the  atmosphere,  the  whole  esprit,  of  each  is,  and 
should  be,  individual  and  distinct. 

Undergraduate  work  takes  a  different  material,  or  takes  its 
material  at  an  entirely  different  stage.  Those  surroundings 
are  not  the  best  which  are  half  one  thing  and  half  another. 
Each  demands  a  peculiar  adaptation  in  the  qualities  of  in 
structors  and  in  their  standards  and  methods.  Confusion  of 
these  trammels  and  frustrates.  The  accent  should  not  be  a 
compromise.  A  University  course  ought  to  be  absolutely  elec 
tive,  of  course  by  groups.  Electives  should  be  the  incidents 
of  the  course  in  arts.  Neither  the  mental  nor  the  moral  dis 
ciplines  of  the  two  coincide.  The  College  student  is  and 
should  be  half-boy,  the  candidates  for  A.  M.,  or  Ph.  D.,  should 
be  all  man.  Not  two  cases  or  three,  to  be  sure,  but  the  aver 
ages,  give  the  demarcation. 

So  I  say  firmly  that  in  my  opinion  (be  it  worth  never  so 
little)  the  College  that  is  contained  in  a  University  is  not  the 
best  kind  of  a  College,  and  that  the  University  which  attempts 
to  include  undergraduate  work  is  not  the  best  kind  of  a  Uni 
versity.  It  is  a  College  that  does  not  rightly  honor  its  own 
specialty  of  discipline,  or  it  is  a  University  that  has  not  yet 
gotten  its  growth.  In  either  case  something  is  forfeited,  either 
in  prematurity  or  immaturity. 

Let  none  take  umbrage  at  this,  for  I  seek  the  relative  and 
peculiar  honor  of  each  set  of  functions.  They  are  coordinate 


THE  TWO  TITLES  NOT  CONVERTIBLE  189 

parts  of  one  full  system,  they  are  not  parts  of  each  other. 
Germany  separates  from  her  gymnasia  her  special  schools  of 
science  and  philosophy,  and  it  is  retrogressive  and  abnormal 
to  combine  them  here. 

The  College  knows  what  it  is  doing  and  needs  to  do.  Its 
task  is  still  imperative.  Its  distinctiveness  is  its  distinction. 
The  firm,  honest,  high-class  College  of  today  gives  a  product 
all  its  own,  and  which  it  need  not  be  ashamed  to  compare  with 
any  of  like  degree.  Criticism  is  its  atmosphere,  as  investiga 
tion  is  the  atmosphere  of  the  advanced  post-graduate  realm. 
The  University  course  is  to  be  guaged  by  its  permissions:  but 
the  College  course  by  its  exactions;  not  by  what  a  few  may 
get  out  of  it,  but  by  what  the  more  part  must  get  who  conquer 
its  schedule  and  attain  its  imprimatur. 

As  subsequent  to  College  life,  University  work  has  its  unim 
peachable  importance;  as  a  substitute  for  that  life  it  is  a  fail 
ure.  That  such  substitution  is  a  failure  may  be  argued  by  com 
paring  the  ratio  in  efficient  success,  between  those  who  take 
special  degrees  after  a  true  College  experience  and  those  who 
take  these  without  such  experience.  To  say  nothing  of  the 
moral  callowness  of  boys  plunged  into  the  (for  them)  too 
absolute  irresponsibility  of  University  surroundings  strictly 
such,  there  is  not  onfy  the  chance  but  the  likelihood  that  they 
will  develop  spindling  and  thin.  It  is  bad  husbandry  to  let  an 
orchard  run  to  apples  until  it  has  for  some  years  developed 
sturdy  wood.  Precocious  fruit  robs  fibre  and  sacrifices  the  per 
ennial  for  the  transient.  The  ultimate  should  be  more  than 
the  proximate,  the  enduring  held  higher  than  the  extempore, 
and  'the  long  run'  preferred  to  the  short  dash. 

It  is  by  an  instinct  that  is  an  argument  that  the  typical  Col 
lege  is  relatively  rural.  The  University  is  naturally  urban  and 
even  metropolitan.  The  country  is  not  its  normal  place,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  a  city  is  no  place  for  a  College. 

Numbers  and  the  eclat  of  boisterous  crowds  are  no  adequate 
test  of  what  is  best  and  most  effluent  in  either  case.  Certainly 


igo  THE  DISTINCTIVE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  COLLEGE 

the  College  should  be  compact  and  wieldy  in  order  most 
surely  to  emphasize  each  particular  man.  Some  of  you  will 
join  me  good-naturedly  to  remind  any  who  need  reminding 
that  the  quality  of  a  home  is  not  always  to  be  estimated  by 
the  size  and  costliness  of  the  house,  and  that  some  of  the  best 
products  of  the  world  are  still  hand-made. 

It  is  high  time  to  make  more  distinct  and  positive  the  claim 
of  the  College  proper  to  a  place  and  power  not  to  be  super 
seded.  It  is  high  time  to  resent  and  to  resist  the  assumptions 
of  educators  in  specialistic  realms  who  so  readily  volunteer 
an  advice  which  they  are  not  most  competent  to  give,  and  a 
dictation  of  theories  which  are  vitiated  or  at  least  devitalized 
by  failure  to  consider  the  strict  College  area  and  requirement. 
University  ideals  and  tasks  are  after  their  own  kind  and  give 
no  warrant  of  special  competency  in  the  philosophy  of  College 
ideals  and  tasks.  Ne  sutor  ultra  crepidam. 

When  President  Woolsey  could  write:  "  Had  I  my  life  to 
live  over  again,  I  would  throw  in  my  lot  with  one  of  the 
smaller  Colleges,  where  I  could  have  more  influence  in  train 
ing  mind  and  shaping  character,"  there  is  surely  something  to 
exalt  in  that  differentiation  which  makes  of  each  student  an 
individual  problem, — yes,  and  demonstration.  The  prime  duty 
of  a  College  professor  is  the  study  of  students. 

The  thoro  College  course  keens  the  mind  while  it  binds  the 
hearts  of  those  who  share  its  romance  and  comradeship.  In 
rubbing  men  well  together  it  reduces  snobbery  while  it  edu 
cates  mutual  respect  for  whatever  is  sterling  and  brave.  And 
here  I  say  that  attending  recitations  in  College  subjects  and  at 
College  age,  is  not  necessarily  "going  to  College."  For  a 
class-room  at  the  end  of  a  trolley  or  a  cable  is  not  College  ! 
Campus  and  dormitory  and  table  and  prize  contest  and  ath 
letic-field  and  chapel, —  the  collectivity  of  these  is  an  elemental 
part  of  real  College  days.  These  adjuncts  to  the  curriculum 
make  up  that  whole  influence  and  momentum  which  nothing 
else  is  like.  I  appeal  to  your  memories,  who  have  heard  me 


HUMANISTIC    TRAINING  Igl 

so  kindly.  That  enduring  spell  "of  woven  paces  and  of  wav 
ing  hands"  which  we  can  neither  forget  nor  renew,  that  mys 
tical  sentiment  of  youth  changing  to  manhood,  that  tearful 
charm  —  a  "gleam  of  irrecoverable  gold," — you  whose  hearts 
all  this  once  subdued,  can  you  analyze  or  appraise  it  ?  Would 
you  exchange  it  for  aught  else  ? 

As  A.  B.  graduates,  let  us  then  urge  the  values  of  those  dis 
ciplines  which  cultivate  all  powers  so  that  they  may  be 
applied  to  any  subject,  which  compact  men  for  either  the 
demands  of  ripened  investigations,  or  for  the  shock  and  pres 
sure  of  affairs,  putting  first  the  broad  and  sound,  and  putting 
afterward  the  exceptional. 

We  are  to  honor  the  breasts  that  nursed  us  by  being  thoro 
and  all-around  men  toward  every  present  demand  in  church 
and  school  and  government  and  enterprise.  We  owe  it  to  our 
selves  to  be  true  men  of  letters,  interested  in  the  whole  record, 
lengthwise  and  widthwise,  of  human  feeling  and  action,  remem 
bering  so  that  all  real  literature  is  a  transcript  of  life,  having 
concrete  ends  for  the  soul  and  forever.  As  humanists,  to 
whom  nothing  that  is  is  alien,  we  are  bound  in  duty  to  think 
into  our  rational  and  voluntary  lives  the  problems  and  the 
proofs  the  motives  and  the  ideals  that  make  life  most  worthy 
when  most  exacting.  Festina  lente — wise  paradox  to  con  and 
keep  !  Haste  without  hurry, — grow  then  go, —  that  is  the  true 
College  idea.  The  man  is  primary,  speed  is  secondary. 

This  is  the  true  order  in  life,  therefore  in  education. 


CORRECTIONS 


Page  21,  line  11;  omit  "a"  before  "  man." 

Page  34,  line  22;  read — conclave  of  human  hearts. 

Page  36,  title  lines;  read — New  England  Society  of  New  York  City, 

Page  57,  line  13;  read — men  who  are  unwilling. 

Page  123,  put  verses  beginning  at  foot  of  page  in  quotation  marks. 

Page  130,  line  33;  meditative,  was  misspelled. 

Page  151,  last  line  but  two;  omit  the  first  "having/1 

Page  164,  line  5;  "know"  should  be  read,  knows. 

line  12;  inverted  n  in  recognition. 

line  15;  read  t  for  "i"  in  but. 
Page  170,  last  line  but  four;  exaggeration,  was  misspelled. 


This  limited  edition,  of  one  thousand  copies,  of 
HAMILTON,  LINCOLN,  AND  OTHER  ADDRESSES,  was 
printed,  from  type,  at  the  Courier  Press,  Clin 
ton,  N.  YM  March,  1896. 


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